Yahoo! Media Audit Report by Chau Nguyen

CS4028 Issues Tracking Report Chau Nguyen Norâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Huda Binti Mohamed Abidin Suzanna Farid Tang Shu Ling Tammie Kang Zi Ying

2 Executive Summary On 16 July 2012, Yahoo! released an official statement to the press that Marissa Mayer would be appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). We are interested in learning about the many changes Yahoo! has undergone under the new CEOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leadership through the lens of the media. In this report, we analyse how the view of Yahoo! as portrayed by the media is congruent to the view of Yahoo! set by the company itself. Therefore, we have raised the following research question: How has the media portrayed Yahoo! with all the changes that it has undergone and implemented over the past year? We conducted a comprehensive Factiva search of Yahoo! and looked through the different articles mentioning Yahoo! in the past year. The articles were from the period that Marissa Mayer was appointed CEO to present. We have scoped the changes into three main themes to conduct a more in-depth issue tracking analysis: (1) Appointment of new CEO, (2) Mergers and acquisition, and (3) Rebranding. The themes were selected based on prominence for (1) and (2) and recency for (3). The methodology that we used included both qualitative and quantitative analysis using various digital tools such as Factiva, online search engines, online news platforms, and social media websites. For qualitative analysis, we analysed the tonality and content of the selected articles from credible sources. For quantitative analysis, we collated and converted our findings into statistics in order to get a general view of Yahoo!â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s image in the media. Refer to Figure 1 for a summary of the three selected issues.

Issue 1: New CEO Appointment

Issue 2: Mergers & Acquisitions

Issue 3: Rebranding

Neutral: 41% (9)

Neutral: 25% (5)

Neutral: 66.7% (16)

Positive: 18% (4)

Positive: 15% (3)

Positive: 0

Negative: 41% (9)

Negative: 60% (12)

Negative: 33.3% (8)

Our findings show that during the period of July 2012 to present, the overall tonality of Yahoo! in the media was more negative than positive, however, issues were still reflected objectively in general. For Issue 1 (New CEO Appointment), the articles were equally neutral and negative, which reflects the maturity of the change. As with most organisational change, there is expected resistance. Articles acknowledged CEO Mayerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s past experiences in Google but they were also critical of how she could apply her expertise and make it relevant to manage Yahoo!. This trend was apparent in the subsequent chosen issues. 60% of Issue 2 (Mergers and Acquisitions) articles were negative. Given the history of unsuccessful business acquisitions by Yahoo!, articles were framed to question the prospects of

4 one of the company’s largest acquisitions – Tumblr. Even though Mayer made a verbal statement to make the deal work, both mainstream and social media remain cynical that Yahoo! and Tumblr could make the content and middle management from David Karp himself operate synonymously and generate profit. As for Issue 3 (Rebranding), articles were receptive of the change implemented on Yahoo! in the form of a new logo. Industry professionals have been relatively supportive of Yahoo!’s launch campaign “30 days of change”. However, they agreed that Yahoo! needs to step up in terms of offering innovative products and services rather than just revising its logo in order to revive its brand image and favourability in consumers’ minds. An extensive research on the various news platforms, including social media, ensures that the report covers a wide range of articles and viewpoints. Mass media frames how news is presented to the public and social media is a reflection of how the public are responding to what they know about a particular issue. We believe that this report can help Yahoo! understand the discrepancies on how the company presents itself and how the media portrays it. By being aware of these issues, Yahoo! could hopefully realign its image to how it wishes the media would portray the company.

5 Yahoo! Inc. Overview Yahoo! was founded in 1994 by David Filo and Jerry Yang. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, and has 11,500 employees in 25 countries, provinces and territories. On July 2012, former Google executive Marissa Mayer was named as Yahoo!â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s CEO. Its mission is to make the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s daily habits inspiring and entertaining. Apart from its search engine, Yahoo! Search, the other services Yahoo! provides are Yahoo! Advertising, Yahoo! Answers, Yahoo! Entertainment, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Games, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Maps, Yahoo! Mobile, Yahoo! Messenger, Yahoo! Movies, Yahoo! Music, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Shine, Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! Toolbar, Flickr and Tumblr. Yahoo! has integrated services provided by its acquired companies and offers them to users. These acquired companies are AdInterax, Astrid, IntoNow, IQ Engines, Lexity, PlayerScale | Player.IO, Qwiki, Right Media, Rockmelt, Rondee, Spreets, Tumblr and Xobni. Yahoo! strives to create highly personalised digital experiences to keep people connected across devices around the world through the services it provides. The company unveiled its new logo during the first week of September 2013 after not having updated it for 18 years; publicising its intentions of rebranding its image. Yahoo! takes the privacy of its users seriously and recognises its role as a global company to promote freedom of expression. The company issued its first global law enforcement transparency report at the same time that its new logo was released and aims to release transparency reports biannually.

6 Yahoo! Inc. Competitor Analysis When comparing the services that Yahoo! provides with other companies, two companies stood out as direct competition for Yahoo! in terms of the similar services that they provide: 1)

Google Inc.

AOL Inc.

Share of Voice The share of voice of Yahoo!, Google and AOL were tabulated in two spheres: 1) Online & Print Media, and 2) Social Media. 1) No. of times competitors have been mentioned in collated articles

23.6%

76.4%

Google Inc.

AOL Inc.

Figure 1. No. of times Yahoo!â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s competitors have been mentioned in collated articles. This figure illustrates the share of voice of Google Inc. and AOL Inc. in online and print media in relation to Yahoo!.

Share of Voice in Social Media 2

19%

25.2%

Google Inc.

55.8%

Yahoo Inc.

AOL Inc.

Figure 2. Share of Voice in Social Media. This figure illustrates the share of voice of Google Inc., Yahoo! Inc. and AOL Inc. in social media relative to one another and excluding other companies (Socialmention, 2013, 9 September).

Yahoo! Inc. vs. Google Inc. Google was founded in 1998 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Its mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” (Google, 2013). To date, Google has acquired over 120 companies. Other than its search engine, Google Search, Google also provides a wide range of online tools and platforms such as Gmail, Google Chrome, Google Code, Google Drive, Google Hangouts, Google Maps, Google Mobile, Google News, Google Scholar, Google Toolbar, Google+, Picasa, and YouTube. Google, like Yahoo!, provides search, entertainment, news, mail, platforms for social interaction, and advertising services with the aim of organising and monetising the world’s information.

8 As Google is viewed as Yahoo!’s strongest competitor, it is not surprising that company internal changes, company image and services provided by both Google and Yahoo! have been compared and critiqued by the media. On the issue of company internal changes, Yahoo!’s ban on telecommuting has sparked much heated discussion on whether the company is making the right choice. The media compares Yahoo!’s tactic to get more productive employees with that of Google’s. While Yahoo! is under the spotlight for issuing an edict with an ultimatum, Google seems to manage its employees by engaging them and letting them know that their opinions matter at the workplace. Also on the issue of company internal changes, Yahoo! and Google have both been spending a lot of money acquiring other companies at an accelerated pace and acqui-hiring in the process since Marissa Mayer became Yahoo! CEO in July 2012. The media highlights that Yahoo! and Google takes on a similar approach of mergers and acquisitions but their reasons for doing so are different. While Yahoo! has the intention of making itself more attractive to younger people as a short-term goal, Google has the intention of becoming a big data empire by collaborating and unifying its properties and giving meaning to its existing company services. On the issue of company image, while Yahoo! launched its new company logo after 18 years during the first week of September 2013 through a “30 days of change” campaign which attracted much attention through the media, Google has only made a small change to its logo, by flattening it, and has most recently associated itself with the chocolate KitKat after having branded its new mobile operating system “Android KitKat”. On the issue of services provided, the search market shares and comparison of the quality of services provided by Yahoo! and Google are topics which are most discussed in the news.

9 Yahoo! Inc. vs. AOL Inc. AOL was founded in 1983 by Jim Kimsey. AOL’s mission is to “inform, entertain and connect the world” (AOL, 2013). The company’s strategy is to focus on increasing the scale and style of its advertising platform and allowing the size and engagement of its global online audience to flourish through its services and improvement in content. It currently has 8000 employees, and to date, AOL has acquired about 60 companies. AOL provides users with services such as AOL instant-messaging, AOL Mail, AOL Lifestream, Patch (localised online news in the United States), MapQuest and news by the AOL Huffington Post Media Group. As seen from the list of services AOL provides, it is clear that some of its services overlaps with what Yahoo! provides to Yahoo! users. Therefore, though a smaller company, AOL is a fast-growing and promising company as seen from its increase in stock value over the recent years and its growing user community. Yahoo! and AOL face off as close rivals in terms of the services they provide, both coming in behind Google in terms of being the most preferred social web sphere. Thus, they have also been compared by the media. On the issue of company internal changes, Yahoo!, as mentioned previously, has been talked about on media platforms regarding its changes in terms of company practices, after Marissa Mayer became Yahoo!’s CEO in July 2012. AOL, on the other hand, has been engaging in media publicity to inform Internet users about the new members coming on board to be part of the AOL family.

10 On the issue of company image, while recent efforts of Yahoo!’s rebranding by changing its logo and acquiring Tumblr with the aim of appealing to a younger crowd has been much discussed on media platforms, AOL’s recent changes in brand identity which aims to portray their commitment to simplicity, creativity and dynamic nature of the company and employees have not been hyped up nor discussed much with the news only appearing on the AOL blog. On the issue of services, both Yahoo! and AOL offer similar services. Yahoo! and AOL have been compared regarding their mail and instant messaging services. While Yahoo! already has a long history of being an alternative Internet search engine to Google, become a familiar brand name, and established an image in the minds of Internet users, AOL still has the a huge capacity of making Internet users aware of its presence and increasing its user base by generating more hype of its rebranding and services as well as by providing quality content through media platforms. Method for Content Analysis Tonality The articles will be categorized into different tonalities: neutral, positive, negative. Articles are categorized as ‘neutral’ if the headlines and text adopted an objective stance. This include exclusion of opinions and a balanced set of positive and negative observations. ‘Positive’ articles generally favoured and/or approved the issue in their headlines and texts. ‘Negative’ articles disapprove and critique the topic in their headlines and texts. Prominence in Headline Prominence is defined as the frequency the name Yahoo/Yahoo! is mentioned in the headlines of the articles.

11 Issue 1: New CEO Appointment Overview Over a period of 5 years, Yahoo! has gone through 4 different CEOs (including interim CEOs) but neither of them were able to lead Yahoo! back to its glorious days. In early 2009, Carol Bartz of Autodesk was hired to succeed founder Jerry Yang. She was successful in implementing changes to the management team, employee layoffs to save costs and shifted the focus into a more personalised content. However, after two years, she was removed from her position via a telephone call and replaced by interim CEO, Tim Morse. The problem: She did not have a vision and she failed to create shareholder value. In January 2012, Yahoo! appointed Scott Thompson of Paypal as CEOx. During his time, he executed a plan to reduce 14% of the Yahoo! workforce. Four months after, a press release was issued that Thompson was no longer with the company and he would immediately be replaced by Ross Levinsohn on interim basis. The problem: Misstated college credentials. News had spread that Marissa Mayer, vice president of location and search of Google had applied for the vacant CEO spot. On Monday, July 16, 2012, Marissa Mayer resigned from Google. And on the same day, Yahoo! released an official statement to announce that Mayer has been appointed as the President and Chief Executive Officer with effect from Tuesday, July 17, 2012. According to the statement, a couple of changes are to be expected: •

"renewed focus on product innovation";

•

"bring innovative products, content, and personalize experiences";

•

"enhance Yahoo's product offerings".

12 It has been two months since Mayer’s CEO appointment. She has focused her efforts on improving Yahoo’s organisational culture by ensuring it meets Silicon Valley standards. Two noteworthy changes have been implemented and criticised: work-from-home ban and the new Yahoo! logo. One such change was the work-from-home ban that was circulated via an internal memo to the employees but was made public. According to Mayer, working from home is “not what’s right for Yahoo right now”. She acknowledges that people are “productive when they’re alone” but explains that they are “more collaborative and innovative when they’re together”. She used the example of the Yahoo! Weather App to demonstrate the effectiveness of collaboration. Employees were generally receptive to this change with the exception of working mothers. Mayer, a new mother herself, was said to have an in-built nursery for her son in her office. However, Yahoo! has increased the paid leave given to mothers from 8 weeks to 16 weeks and for fathers – 8 weeks. Another change comes in the aesthetic front of Yahoo! the company, specifically, its logo. Yahoo!, under the leadership of Marissa Mayer, managed to rebrand and market the company by having a “30 days of change” campaign that got people wondering what the new logo would be. Mayer on the new logo: “We knew we wanted a logo to reflect Yahoo – whimsical, yet sophisticated. Modern and fresh, with a nod to our history. Having a human touch, personal. Proud.” It is seen as an important step to prepare people for change. This move was put in comparison to Gap who eventually had to accommodate to the masses and change back into their old logo.

13 The success of the company’s internal changes has not changed its reputation among consumers. Many of whom still feel that Yahoo! is stuck in the nineties. Based on content analysis, we want to see what the mainstream print and online media in the U.S. have said about situation. Content Analysis of CEO Appointment On the issue relating specifically to Marissa Mayer as the new CEO, we have selected 23 articles to conduct a more in-depth textual analysis (refer to Appendix A). The keywords used to search for the article includes: “Marissa Mayer”, “new CEO”, “Yahoo”, and “July 2012”. We only selected articles from sources that were based in the U.S. to ensure a more focused scope. Also, we filtered articles to those published from 16th July 2012 to 17th July 2012. The primary focus is to analyse how Yahoo! is portrayed in the individual articles. Tonality Out of the 22 selected articles, based on the factors mentioned above: 41% (9) were neutral, 41% (9) were negative, 18% (4) of the articles were positive.

14 Figure 3. Tonality of Issue 1: New CEO Appointment. This figure illustrates the percentage of articles which have neutral, negative or positive tonalities out of 22 selected articles.

Neutral In the 1990s, Yahoo! shaped the Internet industry – the pioneer of Internet (Perlroth, 2012). However, Yahoo! is currently receiving more revenue for their advertising and B2B ventures as compared to their consumer services. As mentioned in the official press statement (2012), Yahoo!'s products “will continue to enhance our partnerships with advertisers, technology and media companies”. Colleen Taylor of Techcrunch (2012) also describes Yahoo! as a “major, publicly traded company”. In the official release, Marissa Mayer also mentioned employees of Yahoo!. In her address, she mentioned that she was looking forward to work together with the “dedicated employees (of Yahoo!) to bring innovative products, content, and personalized experiences to users and advertisers all around the world”. 16 of the 23 articles mentioned this specific statement. Positive According to Yahoo!’s official press statement (2012), they describe themselves as ‘one of the world's largest consumer internet brands’. Marketing Land’s Pamela Parker stated that despite the declining stature, the company is still “one of the most powerful brands on the Internet” that plays a major in online consumer experience (Parker, 2012). 12 of the chosen articles used the quote by the newly appointed CEO Marissa Mayer that Yahoo! is “one of the internet's premier destinations for more than 700 million users” (Casserly, 2012; Gannes, 2012; Gustin , 2012; Franzen, 2012; Jeffries, 2012; Swartz & Martin, 2012;

15 Learmonth & Del Rey, 2012; O'Dell: 2012; Perlroth, 2012; Rushe & Arthur, 2012, Stone, 2012). A positive turning point for Yahoo! was when interim CEO Ross Levinsohn took over (Ingram, 2012; Swartz & Martin, 2012). Under his supervision and with his digital media expertise, Yahoo! was successful in amending ties with Facebook and attaining content distribution deals with Spotify, CNBC, and Clear Channel (Peterson, 2012). New York Times reported that one of the employees were positive about the new appointment. The information mentioned that Yahoo! needed a vision to rally around and felt that Marissa Mayer was the right person for that (Sorkin & Rusli, 2012). Negative It has been discussed that Yahoo! has various business ventures but, eventually, not having a cohesive brand identity. Is Yahoo! a technology or media company (Learmonth & Del Rey, 2012)? Sorkin and Rusli (2012), of the New York Times, also commented that the company is struggling to create a distinctive Yahoo! strategy. GigaOM and Time: Tech believes that Yahoo! is a media company (Ingram, 2012; Swartz & Martin, 2012). Other articles described Yahoo! as a “beleaguered” web giant (McCracken, 2012; Stone, 2012). Mainstream print media The Wall Street Journal identified Yahoo as a “struggling” Internet company (Efrati & Letzing, 2012). Under the management of Scott Thompson, thousands of employees were affected as a result of downsizing (Sorkin & Rusli, 2012). Hope returned under the management of interim CEO Levinsohn. After which, current CEO Mayer was hired. However, Wall Street Journal reported that some employers were disappointed with this recent change as they were used to “following a relatively new strategy” (Efrati & Letzing, 2012).

Prominence in Headline 100% of the 23 articles mentioned Yahoo in the headline, but only 1 of the 23 used the name Yahoo!. Yahoo!’s competitor, Google, was mentioned in 13 (56.5%) of the 23 articles. Competitors In this particular article, Yahoo!’s direct competitor, Google, is directly affected by this news. In fact, Google is mentioned in the article just as often as Yahoo!. Out of the 23 articles, Yahoo was mentioned 365 times (55%), Google was mentioned 295 times (44.4%), and there were 4 mentions of AOL (0.6%). Google was usually mentioned because of Marissa Mayer’s association to the organisation, whom she had worked at for a period of 19 years. Google’s executives made their comments regarding Mayer’s new appointment. The overall tone of these comments were positive. Her previous boss, Jeff Hubber (@jhuber) tweeted to Mayer’s personal twitter: “Thank you @marissamayer for helping build google over the last 13 years, and good luck in your new adventures with Y!” Executive chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, also made a statement commenting on her expertise in products and user experience while congratulating both Yahoo! and Marissa. On the other hand, Google’s CEO Larry Page made a statement that did not even mention her new company. He said: “Since arriving at Google just over 13 years ago as employee #20, Marissa has been a tireless champion of our users. She contributed to the development of our Search, Geo, and Local products. We will miss her talents at Google.”

17 Social Media The overall tone of social media was positive (refer to Appendix B). Most congratulated Marissa Mayer on her new post. Anil Dash (@anildash), co-founder of strategy consulting firm, Activateinc, mentioned that the new appointment could help Yahoo! and strengthen the Internet industry. Other tweets by Glamour magazine (@glamourmag) and Business Chick (@businesschicks) associated Marissa Mayerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new position as a symbol of a woman in power. Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s magazine, Marie Claire (@marieclaire) also celebrated Mayersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new appointment without any mention of her gender.

18 Issue 2: Mergers & Acquisitions Overview After Marissa Mayer was appointed as Yahoo! Inc’s CEO in July 2012, she made far more acquisitions than any other CEO. Up till today, the company has attained 21 companies, both start-ups and established ones, although start-up companies make the bulk of it. Yahoo!’s acquisitions lie mainly in four areas: core content (applications that generate content), social networking, gaming and video/conference calls. The latest company that Yahoo! bought was Rockmelt, a social-web browser, on August 8 2013. And one of the largest acquisitions Yahoo! Inc made was of Tumblr for $1.1 billion in cash in June 2013. Tumblr is a microblogging platform and social networking website that is popular with people in the 18-35 age bracket, which Yahoo! is aiming to target next, in an attempt to revitalise the company’s image (Grandoni, 2013; Lunden, 2013). We have decided to concentrate on the largest acquisition that Mayer made thus far as Yahoo!’s CEO, which is the purchase of Tumblr. This particular acquisition garnered a lot of mostly negative media coverage as many were (and still remain) sceptical about Yahoo!’s strategy concerning their recent purchases. Yahoo!’s revenue has fallen 7% over the last four quarters of the fiscal year under Mayer (Cohan, 2013), yet the companies they acquired increased steadily. And though Tumblr has a wide base of users but it does not earn much – it only had about $13 million in revenue in 2012 and juxtaposing this with the $1.1 billion offer that Yahoo! made, it can explain why some critics are largely cynical that Yahoo! can turn around quickly. Despite a lacklustre financial performance, Yahoo!’s tactic is to increase its audience by 50%, on top of the 300 million mobile users they already have. And by “acqui-hiring” talents as

19 a result of the numerous acquisitions, these people can then “build inspiring products that will attract users and increase traffic, that traffic will increase advertiser interest and ultimately translate into revenue” (Dredge, 2013). Mayer revealed this strategy during Yahoo!’s financial earnings call in July 2013, emphasising on creating this “chain reaction” that will reignite the company’s growth (Dredge, 2013). Mayer also said in a statement at the Wired Business Conference in May 2013 that the company’s biggest goal right now is to have “Yahoo! persistent on every smartphone, tablet, and PC for every Internet user” (Markowitz, 2013). Looking at the nature of acquisitions Yahoo! has made so far, it seems to be on target to its goal and it has an opportunity to make Yahoo! appeal to the younger crowd, and thus generate more web traffic. Content Analysis of Yahoo!’s Acquisition of Tumblr We have selected 20 articles to analyse and conduct an in-depth analysis (refer to Appendix C). The keywords used to search for these articles are “acquisitions”, “Yahoo!” and “tumblr”. Yahoo!’s acquisition of Tumblr was finalised earlier this year on June 20th, as such, we have decided to focus on articles leading up to the date and post-acquisition period (i.e. present day). Since both Yahoo and Tumblr are companies based in the U.S., our articles came from sources were also based in the U.S.

20 Tonality Tonality of Issue 2

15%

60% 25%

Negative

Positive

Neutral

Figure 4. Tonality of Issue 2: Mergers & Acquisitions. This figure illustrates the percentage of articles which have neutral, negative or positive tonalities out of 19 selected articles.

Neutral A handful of articles were written impartially and other than reporting factual events, they explored why some critics felt strongly towards or against Yahoo!’s actions. For example, Seth Fiegerman, a writer for Mashable.com (an online news community), first acknowledged Mayer as a new hope in Yahoo!’s eyes. He then explained that in order to “understand the enthusiasm around Mayer, just remember that Yahoo! had four different CEOs in the year prior to her hiring” (Fiegerman, 2013). As such, Mayer was viewed as a fresh start for the company, and to the employees, she had the star power that could “revitalise interest in the stale Yahoo! brand” (Fiegerman, 2013). However, Fiegerman also pointed out the main and impending problem that Yahoo! has yet to resolve, even before Mayer’s appointment, that is, its display advertisement business is on the decline. Yahoo! used to dominate the display advertisement market in the last decade but it

21 is now overshadowed by one of its competitors, Google. The vast majority of Yahoo!’s revenue comes from advertising and this falling advertisement revenue in turn drags down Yahoo!’s overall revenue. Google’s advertisement revenue stems from advertisements placed in YouTube, a video sharing website that Google acquired in October 2006, which is popular among the 18-34 age bracket. Similarly, Yahoo! chose to acquire Tumblr because it is one of the more popular social networking sites among people aged between 18 to 35, an age group that Yahoo! is hoping to target, as mentioned earlier. With regards to perception of brands, BrandIndex (a brand intelligence service) reported that Yahoo! is viewed less positively now than it was a year ago. Nevertheless, Ted Marzilli, the managing director of BrandIndex, told Mashable.com that this rating is taken “in the context of other brands that do similar things” (Fiegerman, 2013). This means that Yahoo!’s declining numbers could be a result of other competitors performing better. Alternatively, Marzilli suggested that it could signify consumers feeling put off by Yahoo!’s changes to its products (e.g. the layout of Yahoo! Mail). In another article, Reuters also reported the acquisition of Tumblr objectively. Mayer was quoted in an interview with the reporters and called the combination of Yahoo! and Tumblr an “online powerhouse with roughly one billion users” (Oreskovic & Saba, 2013). But Reuters also mentioned that Yahoo!’s track record in acquisitions is “patchy” (Oreskovic & Saba, 2013). It cited GeoCities (a web hosting service) as an example. GeoCities consisted of ‘neighbourhoods’ where users could create free web pages with pictures, text and guests. However, GeoCities lost its relevance when social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter became more popular. That being said, Reuters quoted Mayer’s reassuring words about the company. She said that Yahoo!

22 now has a “completely different management team, committed to making the Tumblr deal work” (Oreskovic & Saba, 2013). A major digital newspaper in the U.S. (in terms of number of unique visitors), Washington Post, reported on the acquisition generally objectively too. It stated matter-of-factly that David Karp, Tumblr’s CEO, will remain with the company and continue to operate Tumblr (Tsukayama, 2013), whereas other articles framed this as Yahoo! ‘paying’ Karp to stay (Cohan, 2013). An interesting thing to note is that Reuters, Washington Post and The New York Times are the only articles that included the $1.1 billion deal in their headline Positive Some articles reflected positively on the biggest buy by Yahoo! yet. Matt Buchanan, a writer for The New Yorker, a current affairs magazine, wrote in his headline, “What Yahoo! Bought With A Billion Dollars: Hope”. He called the move “pragmatic” (Buchanan, 2013) as Tumblr was not earning as much as they hoped and Yahoo! is targeting the younger crowd, thus it was beneficial to both parties. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), U.S.’ major newspaper (in terms of circulation), wrote an article favouring the acquisition. Even though the headline reads “Yahoo’s Tumblr Deal Brings Challenges, Opportunities”, the article focused a lot on the positive aspects of the acquisition. For example, it framed the concern about Tumblr’s content (e.g. fashion, art and food) and Yahoo!’s current content (e.g. sports, news and finance) as a complementary one because it does not “overlap”.

Negative Most of the articles reviewed did not give Yahoo! much sympathy. Business Insider (a website that focuses on top business news) called Mayer’s procurements an “insane acquisition spree” (Yarow, 2013), and commented that she “tries to breathe life into Yahoo!” (Yarow, 2013), implying that the company is no longer significant as an Internet corporation. Bloomberg Businessweek labelled Yahoo!’s multi-faceted approach to gaining users as “Franken-Yahoo” (Ingram, 2013), with disparate parts that fit together but do not work very well. The largest digital newspaper in the U.S., The New York Times (with a monthly visit count of 35.5 million unique visitors) framed the acquisition negatively, using words like “notorious” (Merced, Bilton & Perlroth, 2013) to describe Yahoo!’s track record with other acquisitions. It was also implied in the article that Yahoo!’s acquisition of Tumblr made “no sense” (Merced et al., 2013) as the latter was not earning much revenue. The third largest digital newspaper in the U.S. (in terms of number of unique visitors monthly), USA Today, essentially wrote the converse of WSJ: because Yahoo!’s current audience is much older than Tumblr’s current one, it is going to face challenges trying to satisfy and at the same time, gain advertising revenue from them (Swartz & Yu, 2013). Moreover, USA Today highlighted Yahoo!’s past acquisition failures and therefore implying that this Tumblr deal could be “tricky” (Swartz & Yu, 2013) for the company. On a similar note, Peter Cohan wrote in a headline for Forbes that Yahoo! “flushes $81 Million more of Yahoo’s Cash and Stock For David Karp” (Cohan, 2013). To Cohan, this move will “not pay off in higher Yahoo! revenues and profits” because Karp is a “middle manager with

24 diminished power who has built a business with no revenue and lacks the experience necessary to work in a big company” (Cohan, 2013). He also predicted future conflicts that could possibly arise between Karp and Mayer concerning the management of Tumblr, as they might have different objectives for Tumblr. ABC News and Wired magazine (a magazine that publishes technology and business related news) predicted an ominous outcome with the purchase of Tumblr (Puga, 2013; Wohlsen, 2013), as with Yahoo!’s previous “mediocre” (Wohlsen, 2013) purchases like GeoCities and Flickr (a photo-sharing website). Yahoo! bought Flickr to add a “free image directory” (Puga, 2013) to their search engines, not to help Flickr blossom into the possible social networking site it could have been. It was because Yahoo! took too long to get Flickr to become mobile and social. Inc. magazine (a business-related magazine) shared similar sentiments and gave their analysis: i) Building Out Mobile Eric Markowitz wrote in Inc.com that Yahoo!’s goal of mobile expansion will be a tough one because unlike its competitors like Facebook and Google, Yahoo! never made the leap into hardware, which will only make Mayer’s hope to be on every device more difficult. ii) Making Yahoo! More Social Markowitz highlighted the attributes of Tumblr’s core demographic, explaining that they can be fickle. According to Huffington Post, Yahoo! just “paid a bundle to reach people who have proven easily distracted and inclined to move on” (Markowitz, 2013).

25 Notwithstanding his generally negative statements on Yahoo!’s acquisition of Tumblr, Markowitz conceded in the conclusion of his article that it is still premature to judge if Mayer’s acquisition strategy will pay off as such implications take time to realise. Prominence in Headline 100% of the articles mentioned Yahoo!’s acquisition of Tumblr in the headlines. Competitors Techcrunch.com (a website that publishes news on information technology) felt that these acquisitions are short-term solutions and that Yahoo! still has yet to achieve cohesion across its disparate products (Empson, 2013). Interestingly, techcrunch.com was acquired by one of Yahoo!’s competitors, AOL, in 2010 and the article by Rip Empson focused on acquisitions made by Yahoo! and Google, who are its main competitors. While Empson recognised Yahoo!’s and Google’s efforts to expand their empire through acquisitions, he concluded his article negatively. He suggested that Yahoo! will face difficulty in unifying its products as these acquisitions may be ad-hoc, “duct-tape style solution” that leaves the real, infrastructural dangers “roiling beneath the surface” (Empson, 2013). As for Google, he pointed out that the company is “struggling” in e-commerce and shopping even though it dominates the search engines (Empson, 2013). Social Media Tumblr’s users have also responded generally negatively to this acquisition, a number of them claiming that they do not want to identify with Yahoo!, by making posts on Tumblr itself (Appendix D). A lot of users are also wary of potential changes in the logging in process, that Yahoo! might require users to log in with their Yahoo! ID and not their Tumblr account.

26 Moreover, if Yahoo! decides to earn some advertising revenue and focus on pushing as many advertisements as possible to the Tumblr users, it might still drive them away. However, Mayer ruled out any radical changes by stating that Tumblr will be run independently. The general response from other social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook have also been negative or indifferent. For example, looking at tweets in May when Yahoo! made the announcement that it was going to acquire Tumblr, there were a handful of people who were unhappy because that could possibly mean censorship (Appendix D). Tumblr is infamous for its amateur porn blogs as well as fandom blogs and users are concerned that such content might be filtered.

27 Issue 3: Rebranding Overview Yahoo! used to be one of the most globally recognizable brands in the nineties. It was widely known for defining the Internet and how people searched for information and connected virtually. However, with the rise of Google as the number one search engine worldwide and countless social media platforms, Yahoo! has been on the decline for the past 10 years. Although the web portal pioneer is the fourth-largest site on the Internet and has an audience of millions, it has been struggling to compete in search, email, and data sharing. Not being able to innovate its products and services, the brand began to lose its place in the consumers’ mind. Among the top 100 global brands in 2012, Yahoo! ranks at 97, losing to its competitor Google, who ranks at number four (Interbrand, 2013). Since Marissa Mayer was appointed as Yahoo!’s CEO in July 2012, the company has surely been revolving with many changes that she implemented. Marissa believed the company has the potential to make a comeback: it has strong brand recognition, a vast audience, and despite challenges, revenues are going up. Besides refreshing the products and office culture, Marissa planned to redesign the company’s longstanding logo after 18 years, as part of Yahoo!’s re-branding strategy. The reason for redesigning the logo is given in a Yahoo!’s official statement on its website: “Over the past year, there’s been a renewed sense of purpose and progress at Yahoo!, and we want everything we do to reflect this spirit of innovation. While the company is rapidly evolving, our logo — the essence of our brand — should too.” The first Yahoo! logo appeared when the company was founded in 1995, which was red with three icons on each side. The logo used on the Yahoo! homepage formerly consisted of the

28 colour red with a black outline and shadow; however, in May 2009, together with a theme redesign, the logo was changed to purple without an outline or shadow. The logo becomes iconic for its whimsical serif font and the exclamation point. On August 7, 2013, Yahoo! announced that the final version of the new logo would be revealed on September 5, 2013 at 12:00 a.m. EST. Yahoo! claims that the new logo will be “a modern redesign that’s more reflective of our reimagined design and new experiences”, however, it will keep the colour purple and the exclamation point to “preserve the character that is unique to Yahoo! – fun, vibrant, and welcoming”.

Figure 5. Yahoo!’s old logo (left) vs. Yahoo!’s new logo (right).

Besides redesigning its logo, Yahoo! rolled out a redesign of some of its platforms, such as Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! TV, Yahoo! Movies, Yahoo! Games, Yahoo! Music, and Yahoo! Weather, as part of its rebranding package. The new look will soon to be given to all of Yahoo!’s properties – aiming to make the experience for users more personal, consistent and engaging.

29 In an effort to create more interest in the logo changeover, Yahoo! launched the “30 days of change” campaign, where it would display a variation of logo, which the in-house design team has created, on Yahoo! home page throughout one month before revealing the official new Yahoo! logo. The campaign was intended to make people curious about the new logo by going to Yahoo! home page every day to see the different options. Yahoo! claims the campaign is “our way of having some fun while honouring the legacy of our present logo.” The prelaunch and launch of new Yahoo! logo, while received a lot of attention from its users and the media, generated a mixture of opinions about it. The success of this rebranding effort from Yahoo! is yet to be measured. Based on content analysis, we want to see what the mainstream print and online media, as well as social media users, in the U.S. have said about the “30 days of change” campaign and the new logo of Yahoo!. Content Analysis of Rebranding On the issue relating to Yahoo! launch of new logo, specifically the “30 days of change” campaign and the new logo itself, we have selected 24 articles to conduct a more in-depth textual analysis (refer to Appendix E). The keywords used to search for the article includes: “Yahoo”, “new logo”, “rebranding”, and “2013”. The period covered is from when Yahoo! announced the kick-off of the campaign on 6 August 2013 until present. We only selected articles from sources that were based in the U.S. to ensure a more focused scope.

30 Tonality

Figure 6. Tonality of Issue 3: Rebranding. This figure illustrates the percentage of articles which have neutral, negative or positive tonalities out of 24 selected articles.

Out of the 24 selected articles, 66.7% (16) were neutral, 0% (0) of the articles were positive, and 33.3% (8) were negative. In specific, among 7 articles relating to Yahoo!’s announcement of releasing a new logo, together with the “30 days of change” campaign, 71.4% (5) were neutral, 0% (0) of the articles were positive and 28.6% (2) were negative. Whereas among 17 articles relating to Yahoo! official new logo, 64.7% (11) were neutral, 0% (0) of the articles were positive and 35.3% (6) were negative. These statistics suggest that Yahoo!’s effort to rebrand itself with a new logo has not been received positively; rather, the media and public is remaining sceptical and/or critical of the company’s new movement, as well as its return-oninvestment.

31 Neutral Yahoo!’s decision to renovate its longstanding, iconic logo is relatively a huge movement as the company has not changed its logo since 1995. The news surely captured a lot of attention from the media and the public, as it is part of the many changes Yahoo! is going through since the appointment of the new CEO Marissa Mayer, in order to regain its glory as the leading brand in Internet-based services back in the nineties. A handful of articles reported the news objectively by stating the official announcement from Yahoo! and describing the ‘30 days of change’ campaign (from TechCrunch, USA Today, CNN). However, most reporters were unable to predict the outcome of this rebranding effort from Yahoo!. Catherine Shu, reported in her TechCrunch article (2013), that “Playing around with its logo is part of Yahoo’s efforts to reflect ‘a renewed sense of purpose and progress,’ but it remains to be seen if consumers are equally inspired.” Professional, such as Dennis Ryan - chief creative officer at advertising agency Olson, acknowledged both sides of the act: “There is both risk and reward in changing a logo”, quoted in USA Today (Swartz, 2013). Maria Amundson, general manager of public relations firm Edelman Silicon Valley, delved further into the issue, expressed her skepticism to reporter of The Business Journals: “Putting a new logo on something is not rebranding it. Most consumers [...] understand that a business has to really authentically change.” (Hepler, 2013) Holding the same opinion, branding expert Laura Ries told The Washington Post “A new logo is an important part of updating Yahoo, but at the end of the day, the company has to do a better job of ‘verbalizing what exactly Yahoo is.’” (2013) When discussing the topic of Yahoo!’s new logo, reporters usually borrowed statements from Yahoo!’s executives, such as Chief Marketing Officer Kathy Savitt and CEO Marissa

32 Mayer, to give readers an understanding of the company’s intention and action. More than 80% of the chosen articles featured their statements, besides quotations from industry professionals or their own opinions, which helps the articles achieve a balance of viewpoints. Among those, two articles mentioned how the CEO Marissa Mayer “stands behind” the new logo against its many critiques from the public. “I like the way the logo turned out, and I like the way that we did it” she confirmed her belief in the logo that she and her design team have chosen for Yahoo!, as mentioned in both articles from The Verge and The Huffington Post. While remaining either a sceptical or critical view on Yahoo!’s logo revision, many reporters highlighted Yahoo!’s effort in a relatively positive way, which helps balance the tonality and preserve the neutral standpoint in their articles. Scott Austin, in his article on The Wall Street Journal (2013), said that “the rebranding puts Yahoo in the spotlight for a month with free advertising.” Also supported the effort, Deutsch LA’s chief digital officer Winston Binch expressed to AdAge reporter: “It can lead people to reconsider Yahoo, a better customer experience, get employees reenergized.” (Peterson, 2013) Dennis Hahn, executive vice president of brand experience at Liquid Agency, told The Business Journals that “...this is well timed [...] If they had done this right when Marissa Mayer took office, it would have been a disaster because there was nothing behind it.” (Hepler, 2013) which Chief Marketing Officer Kathy Savitt of Yahoo! could not agree more: “We’ve been talking about changing the logo since September [...] The timing is right.” - from Yahoo! official statement. Moreover, the news is usually put in perspective with an overview of Marissa Mayer’s actions to reinvent Yahoo! since her appointment. Many articles reported increase in Yahoo!’s stock price under her reign, which indicates hope for the company in the market.

Positive

Unfortunately, we could not find any news article that reflected the topic of Yahoo! changing its logo in a fully positive tone. It is understandable because the release of the logo is very recent and has not affected the company significantly. The public is still adapting to the new logo and the media is still waiting to see whether this rebranding tactic will benefit Yahoo! in the long run.

Negative

Yahoo! logo revision as part of its rebranding strategy has received some strong criticism by several industry professionals and press. Forrester principal analyst Jim Nail told AdAge that “I think they[Yahoo!]’ve got bigger problems than their logo” as the portal keeps losing from advertising revenue and struggles to make money off of its mobile audience (Peterson, 2013). Yahoo!’s strategy to preview one new logo candidate a day over 30 days came across as “gimmicky” (Peterson, 2013) as its competitor AOL has done similarly in the past to reveal the new logo. Yahoo!’s other competitor, Google, also tweaks its logo occasionally to engage its users in historical or global events. Therefore, Yahoo!’s ‘30 days of change’ campaign is criticized for not being innovative enough to make a difference. “It doesn’t feel that fresh” - said a professional as reported in AdAge article (Peterson, 2013). Brian Feldman, from The Atlantic Wire, also agreed that “it’s another sign of Yahoo cribbing tactics from others” (2013). Yahoo!’s executives were also criticized for making “more of a personal choice [...] rather than a strategic statement about who Yahoo is today, where it’s headed and why that’s different than it was in the past.” (Nail; Peterson, 2013) Jonathan, reporter from Forbes, questioned how Yahoo!’s logo campaign relates to the reality of its business proposition.

34 (Baskin, 2013) In his article, he continued to disapprove of Yahoo!’s decision by saying “Its logo has absolutely no bearing on that answer.” (Baskin, 2013) According to him, the campaign doesn’t tell us (the public) anything else about why or how the business is different now than it was before the campaign began. (Baskin, 2013) Matti Leshem, founder and CEO of the marketing strategy agency Protagonist, said “Yahoo missed an opportunity to create a logo reflecting the ‘aspirational’ quality of the company under Marissa Mayer” (Taube, 2013) in an article from Business Insider. Jeff Yang from Quartz proposed in his article that “this may be Meyer’s first big public failure.” (Yang, 2013) The campaign and new logo continued to receive negative words in a TechCrunch article written by Mahesh Sharma such as “30 days of ‘meh’,” “[this logo is feeling] pretty dated,” its color has a “distinctly old-fashioned-internet vibe.” (Sharma, 2013) On the same note, writer Katrina Radic from Branding Magazine described the result of the ‘30 days of change’ campaign as “disappointing” as she thought the logo “looks like its place is in the digital world, only 10 years back.” (Radic, 2013) Tim Peterson from AdAge reported that the “new logos were criticized for being little more than font changes and less impressive than Google semi-regularly rolls out.” (Peterson, 2013) Joining the group of professionals who dislike the aesthetic of the new logo is Venture capitalist Mike Arrington, who strongly expressed his unfavorability of the new Yahoo! logo by words such as “godawful fugly,” “boring,” “banal,” “a great big bag of fail,” “It sucks, badly,” and “uninspiring” - Robert Hof reported in Forbes (2013). Skift CEO Rafat Ali commented “I feel cheated and violated. Yahoo you made a mockery out of all of us.” The reporter himself made a mock comment about the logo based on Marissa Mayer’s precise information of the tinted exclamation point in the logo (it’s 9 degree tinted to the right) in one of

35 her statements: “The new logo [...] is precisely 9% less fun and 9% more business like.” (Hof, 2013) Prominence in Headline 100% of the 24 articles mentioned about Yahoo! new logo in the headline. Yahoo!’s competitors, Google was mentioned in 7 (29.2%) and AOL was mentioned in 2 (8.3%) of the 24 articles. Competitors Yahoo!’s strategy in revealing its new logo to the public has been compared to its competitors Google and AOL. According to Tim Peterson from AdAge, the tactic is similar to how AOL unveiled a half-dozen new logos after splitting from Time Warner, and how Google rolls out doodles frequently for events as varied as Fourth of July and Ella Fitzgerald’s birthday to engage its users. He reported “some in the industry felt Yahoo’s strategy to preview one new logo candidate a day over 30 days came across as ‘gimmicky’.” Yahoo! was also compared to Google in one article from Quartz as both Internet brands, which need a good logo to identify and communicate an idea to its users. However, Yahoo! was said to “has not figured that out.” (Yang, 2013) In addition, Yahoo! was described as losing marketing dollars to its rivals such as Google Inc. and Facebook Inc., as its Internet advertising revenue is on the decline. (Fox News, 2013) Social Media There has been a mixture of responses from social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook about the new logo of Yahoo! (refer to Appendix G). Some have expressed excitement towards the logo, whereas some showed disappointment in the design. Serial entrepreneur Derek

36 Pozawek noted that “It looks like a gravestone. It probably is.” Kara Swisher pointed out on her Twitter feed, the typeface (apparently adapted from the well-known face Optima) has an uncanny resemblance to the font used by cosmetics brand Clinique. Many people also responded to the brand on Facebook as well, where they expressed their honest thoughts about the new logo. Especially after Yahoo!’s intern Max Ma posted his unchosen design for the new logo on his website, many people have tweeted the design on their Twitter account, expressing favourability of his design over Yahoo!’s chosen design (refer to Appendix H).

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46 Tsukayama, H. (2013, 20 May). Yahoo acquires Tumblr in $1.1 billion deal. The Washington Post. Source retrieved from http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-0520/business/39380365_1_yahoo-acquisition-yahoos-board-should-yahoo Tsukayama, H. (2012, July 17). Yahoo names Marissa Mayer as CEO. The Washington Post. Source retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/yahoonames-marissa-mayer-asceo/2012/07/16/gJQAkUGIpW_story.html Wohlsen, M. (2013, 20 May). Yahooâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s past big buys tell a tale of mediocrity and failure. Wired. Source retrieved from http://www.wired.com/business/2013/05/yahoo-acquisition-snafus/ Yang, J. (2013, September 7). Yahooâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new logo makes it look more like a cosmetics brand than an internet company. Quartz. Source retrieved from http://qz.com/121941/seeforyourself-how-yahoos-logo-redesign-makes-it-look-more-like-a-cosmetics-company/ Yarow, J. (2013, July 29). Finding the logic behind Marissa Mayer's monster acquisition spree. Business Insider. Source retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoosacquisitions-since-marissa-mayer-became-ceo2013-7?op=1

47 Bibliography AOL. (2013). Overview. Source retrieved from http://corp.aol.com/about-aol/overview AOL. (2013). The AOL brand. Source retrieved from http://corp.aol.com/our-values/brand AOL instant messenger vs. Yahoo messenger. (n.d.). Diffen. Retrieved September 9, 2013, from the source: http://www.diffen.com/difference/AOL_Instant_Messenger_vs_Yahoo_Messenger Armstrong, L. (2013, June 20). Yahoo! Completes Acquisition of Tumblr. Business Wire. Source retrieved from http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20130620005925/en/Yahoo%21-CompletesAcquisition-Tumblr Berr, J. (2012, May 17). Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s finally time to merge Yahoo and AOL. InvestorPlace. Source retrieved from http://investorplace.com/2012/05/its-finally-time-to-merge-yahoo-and-aol/ Cohan, D. S. (2013, August 12). Yahoo Overpays Tumblr's David Karp By Another $81 million. Entrepreneur. Source retrieved from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/227784 Comparison of Webmail Providers. (n.d.). Retrieved September 9, 2013, from the Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_webmail_providers Cosgrave, J. (2013, August 22). Yahoo beats Google to the top spot for US web traffic. CNBC. Source retrieved from http://www.cnbc.com/id/100980496 CrunchBase: AOL. (n.d.). CrunchBase. Retrieved September 9, 2013, from the source: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/aol CrunchBase: Google. (n.d.). CrunchBase. Retrieved September 9, 2013, from the source: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/google

48 Dignan, L. (2010, September 24). Compare and contrast AOL, Yahoo: In their own words. ZDNet. Source retrieved from http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/compare-and-contrastaolyahoo-in-their-own-words/39564 Dredge, S. (2013, August 5). Yahoo buys social web-browser startup Rockmelt but shuts down its apps. The Guardian US. Source retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/technology/appsblog/2013/aug/05/yahoorockmeltacquisition-mobile-browsers Empson, R. (2013, July 29). Yahoo and Google are both spending big money on acquisition sprees and what that says about their futures. Techcrunch. Source retrieved from http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/29/yahoo-and-google-are-both-spending-big-moneyonacquisition-sprees-and-what-that-says-about-their-futures/ Enthoven, D. (2013, June 27). The Google vs. Yahoo HR smackdown that no one is talking about. Wired. Source retrieved from http://www.wired.com/insights/2013/06/thegooglevs-yahoo-hr-smackdown-that-no-one-is-talking-about/ Google. (2013). Products. Source retrieved from http://www.google.com/about/products/ Kelion, L. (2013, September 3). Android KitKat unveiled in Google surprise move. BBC News. Source retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23926938 Kosner, A. W. (2013, September 5). Yahoo! and AOP back on top! Time to party like itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1999. Forbes. Source retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2013/05/19/yahoo-and-aol-back-on-toptimeto-party-like-its-1999/

49 List of Mergers and Acquisitions by Google. (n.d.). Retrieved September 9, 2013, from the Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Google Lyne, S. (2013, 5 September). Nate Richardson joins AOL as president of AOL live. Source retrieved from http://blog.aol.com/ Mentions about AOL. (2013, 9 September). In Socialmention. Source retrieved from http://www.socialmention.com/search?t=all&q=AOL+%22AOL%22&btnG=Search Mentions about Google. (2013, 9 September). In Socialmention. Source retrieved from http://www.socialmention.com/search?t=all&q=google&btnG=Search. Mentions about Yahoo!. (2013, 9 September). In Socialmention. Source retrieved from http://www.socialmention.com/search/?t=all&q=%22Yahoo%21%22&btnG=Search Null, C. (2013, May 13). Why Yahoo’s telecommuting ban is still bad for business. PCWorld. Source retrieved from http://www.pcworld.com/article/2038639/whyyahoostelecommuting-ban-is-still-bad-for-business.html Savitt, K. (2013, 7 August). Kicking off 30 days of change. Source retrieved from http://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/57582020969/kicking-off-30-days-of-change Simpson, C. (2013, 19 May). Teens are excited about Yahoo! Buying Tumblr. The Atlantic Wire. Source retrieved from http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/05/teensareexcited-about-yahoo-buying-tumblr/65383/ Shaynon, S. (2013, March 27). Marrisa Mayer bulks up Yahoo’s Yahoo’s portfolio with top-line acquisitions. Brand Channel. Source retrieved from http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2013/03/27/Yahoo-Aquisitions-032713.aspx

50 Swisher, K. (2012, August 30). A tale of two stocks: Yahoo stays low while AOL soars high. All Things D. Source retrieved from http://allthingsd.com/20120830/a-tale-of-twostocksyahoo-stays-low-while-aol-soars-high/ Yahoo!. (n.d.). Retrieved September 9, 2013, from the Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo Yahoo! Inc. (2013). Competitors. Source retrieved from http://finance.yahoo.com/q/co?s=YHOO+Competitors Yahoo! Inc. (2013). Investor FAQs. Source retrieved from http://investor.yahoo.net/faq.cfm Yahoo! Inc. (2013). Overview. Source retrieved from http://pressroom.yahoo.net/pr/ycorp/overview.aspx Yahoo! Inc. (2013). Yahoo! acquired companies. Source retrieved from http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/acquiredcompanies/

51 Appendix A A Media Coverage Summary (Issue 1) No. Headline

Author

Date

A Yahoo Search Calls Up a

Andrew Ross

16-Jul-2012 The New

Chief From Google

Sorkin and

York Times

Everlyn M. Rusli

(print)

Marissa

Mayer:

Yahoo!â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Harry

Utterly Surprising,

McCracken

Source

16-Jul-2012 Time: Tech

Tonality Negative

Negative

(online)

Completely Logical Pick for CEO 3

Marissa Mayer Is Yahoo's

Brad Stone

16-Jul-2012 BloombergBu Negative sinessWeek

New CEO

(online) 4

Google executive Marissa

Dominic Rushe

Mayer to become Yahoo

and Charles

CEO in surprise move

Arthur

Yahoo Picks Google's

Juan Carlos

Marissa Mayer as CEO

Perez

Yahoo Names Google Exec

Michael

Marissa Mayer as New CEO Learmonth and Jason Del Rey

16-Jul-2012 The Guardian Negative US (online)

16-Jul-2012 PC World

Negative

(online) 16-Jul-2012 Advertising Age (online)

Negative

52 7

Marissa Mayer Named

Meghan Casserly 16-Jul-2012 Forbes

Yahoo! CEO: New Most Powerful Woman In Tech? 8

Top Google Exec Marissa

(online)

Carl Franzen

Memo

CEO

(online)

Marissa Mayer Named

16-Jul-2012 All Things Liz Gannes

Tomorrow 10

16-Jul-2012 Talking Points Neutral

Mayer Appointed Yahoo

Yahoo CEO, Will Start

Longtime Google Exec

Neutral

Digital (online)

Colleen Taylor

Marissa Mayer Is Yahoo’s

16-Jul-2012 Techcrunch

Neutral

(online)

New CEO 11

Google’s Marissa Mayer is

Jolie O'Dell

Yahoo’s new CEO 12

Digital Industry Cheers as

16-Jul-2012 VentureBeat

Neutral

(online) Tim Peterson

Yahoo Names Google Exec

16-Jul-2012 Adweek

Positive

(online)

Marissa Mayer CEO 13

Mayer’s Appointment Brings Pamela Parker Hopes For Stability In Yahoo

16-Jul-2012 Marketing

Positive

Land (online)

CEO Role 14

Marissa Mayer Is The New CEO Of Yahoo

Nicholas Carlson 16-Jul-2012 Business Insider (online)

Neutral

53 15

Mayer Hopes to Brighten

Nicole Perlroth

User Experience at Yahoo

17-Jul-2012 The New

Negative

York Times (online)

Why Marissa Mayer may not Mathew Ingram be a good fit for Yahoo

17-Jul-2012 GigaOM

Negative

(online) 17

Yahoo gets new CEO:

Jon Swartz and

Wellrespected Google exec

Scott Martin

17-Jul-2012 USA Today:

Negative

Tech (online)

Marissa Mayer 18

Marissa Mayer: Meet

Joanna Stern

Yahoo's New CEO 19

17-Jul-2012 ABC News

Neutral

(online)

Yahoo names Marissa Mayer Hayley as CEO Tsukayama

17-Jul-2012 The

Neutral

Washington Post (online)

Can Google Star Marissa Sam Gustin Mayer Save Yahoo!?

17-Jul-2012 Time:

Neutral

Business & Money (online) 21

Google's Mayer Takes Over as Yahoo Chief

Amir Efrati and John Letzing

17-Jul-2012 The Wall

Positive

Street Journal (online)

Marissa Mayer: a brief Adrianne Jeffries 17-Jul-2012 The Verge history of Yahoo's new CEO (online)

Positive

Source

Media Coverage Clip The Guardian US (online)

Date

16-Jul-2012

Tonality

Negative

URL

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/jul/16/google-marissa-mayeryahooceo

Headline

Google executive Marissa Mayer to become Yahoo CEO in surprise move

55 Yahoo scores coup in bringing in Mayer, who was the 20th employee to join Google and who had spent 13 years there

Marissa Mayer, one of Google's top executives and its first female engineer, will be the next chief executive officer of Yahoo, making her one of the most prominent women in Silicon Valley and in corporate America.

Mayer will start immediately, with her first day being Tuesday 17 July. The fact that she was a candidate had been kept completely secret â&#x20AC;&#x201C; with no indication from Google's top managers that she was about to leave.

The appointment of Mayer is a surprising and impressive coup for Yahoo, a company that has been racked by internal turmoil as it has struggled to compete with Google, Facebook and Twitter in the online display advertising market. Mayer will be Yahoo's fifth chief executive in five years, and its second woman.

56 "I am honoured and delighted to lead Yahoo, one of the internet's premier destinations for more than 700 million users," Mayer said in a statement. "I look forward to working with the company's dedicated employees to bring innovative products, content, and personalized experiences to users and advertisers all around the world."

Yahoo said that Mayer's appointment "signals a renewed focus on product innovation", indicating that the company aims to compete on the technological â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and not just the content â&#x20AC;&#x201C; front.

Mayer, 37, has a degree in artificial intelligence. In 1999, when Google was barely a year old, she became its 20th employee, going on to spend 13 years there. She had become one of its most prominent voices. More recently, Mayer has also begun to forge a wider role in corporate America, recently joining the board of retail giant Walmart.

She is six months pregnant with her first child, due in October, and said her maternity leave would be "a few weeks long and I'll work through it".

Mayer joins a very short list of women in top jobs in Silicon Valley, alongside Meg Whitman, the chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, Virginia Rometty, the head of IBM, and Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer.

57 She takes over at a company that has been roiled by scandal and argument. In May, Yahoo lost its last chief executive, Scott Thompson, after only four months. The former PayPal boss was ousted after it emerged that he had padded his resumĂŠ, leading to angry shareholders demanding that he go. Thompson's departure also led to a board reshuffle and the resignation of chairman Roy Bostock.

Thompson's exit followed the even more tempestuous firing of his predecessor Carol Bartz, who left in a foul-mouthed tirade, calling the board "doofuses" who had "fucked me over." Yahoo has struggled for years to keep up with Google in search ads as Facebook has eclipsed it in display advertising. Yahoo is now worth just over $19bn, less than half the $44.6bn Microsoft offered for the company in 2008.

The company stock jumped 2% in after-hours trading to just over $16.

Colin Gillis, a tech analyst at BGC Partners in New York, said Mayer was a great appointment and a loss for Google. "She is in a different league," he said. "She is very widely respected and she really knows this business."

At Google, Mayer had been responsible for many of the company's key products, including its famous search homepage, Gmail and Google News. More recently,

58 she has taken on responsibility for location and local services, including Google Maps.

She was a popular Google prosleytiser, often sent out to talk about Google's services, and she also sat on Google's operating committee, a cadre of close advisers to Google's co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

59 Media Coverage Clip Source

PC World (online)

Date

16-Jul-2012

Tonality

Negative

URL

http://www.pcworld.com/article/259352/yahoo_picks_googles_marissa_mayer_as_ceo .html

Headline Yahoo Picks Google's Marissa Mayer as CEO Yahoo has picked Google's Marissa Mayer as its new CEO, replacing Scott Thompson, the former PayPal president who left the Yahoo post less than six months into his tenure following a controversy about his college education.

Mayer was Google's 20th employee and was for many years one of the search giant's most visible and well-known executives. Most recently, Mayer had been in charge of Google's Local, Maps and Location products.

Thompson, who took over as CEO in January, left in May after it surfaced that he didn't have a computer science degree, contradicting his public professional biography. Reports later emerged that his resignation was due instead to a cancer diagnosis.

Thompson was picked after Yahoo's board fired Carol Bartz, who became CEO in 2009 after an illustrious career that included many years as CEO of Autodesk.

Bartz, according to the board, was unable to deliver the expected financial and

60 technological rebirth of the embattled company.

Mayer, who will also be Yahoo's president and hold a seat on the board, will begin on Tuesday, and she'll have her work cut out for her.

Yahoo has been struggling to jump-start its revenue and regain the technology edge that made it one of the Internet market leaders in the late 1990s and the first half of the 2000s.

Its troubles began in the second half of the 2000s, when Google started to dominate Internet search, then the fastest-growing and largest segment of the online advertising market.

Afterwards, as it struggled to hold on to key talent and went through several major waves of layoffs, Yahoo was unable to stay on top of hot technology trends, ceding ground to younger, nimbler companies such as Facebook and Twitter.

Mayer will be expected to boost product development as a key to increasing usage and revenue, according to Yahoo.

61 "I look forward to working with [Yahoo's] dedicated employees to bring innovative products, content, and personalized experiences to users and advertisers all around the world," Mayer said in a statement.

Prior to her current role at Google, Mayer led Google's search services and other key products like iGoogle, Google News and Gmail. She started at Google in 1999.

Yahoo's CEO role was performed on an interim role by Ross Levinsohn, a Yahoo executive vice president and head of Global Media.

Source

Media Coverage Clip Advertising Age (online)

Date

16-Jul-2012

Tonality

Negative

URL

http://adage.com/article/digital/yahoo-names-google-exec-marissamayerceo/236061/

Headline

Yahoo Names Google Exec Marissa Mayer as New CEO Yahoo ended its CEO search with a bang, appointing prominent Google exec Marissa Mayer in a move that startled observers and upended the status quo in Silicon Valley.

Ms. Mayer, Google's 20th employee, is one of the search giant's most visible and charismatic execs, though her career appears to have stalled over the past year as she was moved from the search business she built to Google's local, maps and location services division.

"I am honored and delighted to lead Yahoo!, one of the internet's premier destinations for more than 700 million users," she said, in a statement.

In appointing Ms. Mayer, 37, the board passed over Ross Levinsohn, former exec VP of the Americas. Mr. Levinsohn had been handling the CEO position on an interim basis since shortly after the board's last pick, former PayPal exec Scott Thompson, resigned over a resume scandal. While Mr. Levinsohn made a strong

64 case for keeping the job permanently, the board seemed to be dragging its feet on the appointment.

Yahoo Is 'Evaluating Options' On Right Media Ad Exchange

At the Yahoo board meeting last week, execs close to Mr. Levinsohn were expecting some sort of validation of his work, but insiders said they got the feeling there was another candidate in the wings, though they weren't sure who it was. Google Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora was mentioned. Hulu CEO Jason Kilar had been on the board's shortlist, but he removed his name from consideration last week.

Mr. Levinsohn spent the last few days prepping for tomorrow's earnings call, his first. But by the end of last week, the feeling at the top of the company was that the board had a replacement. By naming Ms. Mayer, Yahoo gets a very prominent exec with a technical background, tipping its hand somewhat on the eternal Yahoo question: Is it a technology or a media company? Mr. Thompson was also a technologist with no media experience. During his first few months on the job, Mr. Levinsohn and his staff worked furiously to bring him up to speed on Yahoo's primary revenue engine, as well as introduce him to the key players.

At Google, Ms. Mayer ran the consumer search experience but was not directly

65 involved in the search ad business. While search is Google's biggest revenue driver, it operates with little contact between marketers, which run their own campaigns through mostly agency-owned technologies. The brand ad business -- which Yahoo once dominated on the web -- is very hands on and relationship-driven.

"She has no media experience, no CEO experience -- these are all concerns," said Ben Schachter, an analyst with Macquarie Capital. "And her recent work with Google certainly leaves some question marks about what she was actually doing recently and how successful it's been over the last number of years."

But just because Ms. Mayer doesn't have relationships in the media world doesn't mean she's an unknown. "While she comes from a product background, she's known and respected from the Valley to Madison Avenue," said Jeff Lanctot, chief media officer of Razorfish. "My assumption is she will do interesting and innovative things for Yahoo. Marketers are going to want to hear from her, and from Yahoo."

Former Yahoo board member Eric Hippeau called it a "brilliant move ... which should bring back considerable momentum and credibility to the company."

Ms. Mayer, who was Google's first female engineer, becomes one of Silicon Valley's few female CEOs, a list that once included former Yahoo CEO Carol

66 Bartz, as well as Hewlett Packard CEO Meg Whitman and Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, also a Google alum. Ms. Mayer's move is more akin to the leap Tim Armstrong made from Google to CEO of AOL, where his relationships with big marketers were considered his key selling point. As an exec from the product side of Google, those are relationships Ms. Mayer has yet to build.

"Ross has done a brilliant job of establishing those relationships over the past 18 months," said MediaLink CEO Michael Kassan. "The challenge will be how fast she hits the ground running." Industry sources said they'd be surprised if Ross Levinsohn stayed on after being passed over for the permanent job. But Rob Norman, CEO of the media agency GroupM, said he thinks the two could make an extremely complementary team. "If the CEO is a great monetizer of audiences, they need someone with them to help create those audiences," he said.

Mr. Lanctot wondered why the board would allow Mr. Levinsohn to be seen as the presumptive choice if they were so intent on pursuing other candidates. "He laid out a vision to customers, struck media deals, and made a key hire in [Chief Revenue Officer] Michael Barrett," he said. "That all pointed to Yahoo as a media company. Now that they've hired a product pro to lead the business, does that change?"

Mr. Levinsohn could not be reached for comment.

67 Mr. Norman said he doesn't envision the need for Ms. Mayer to take a long-winded agency tour to get a download on what is and isn't working. "I think she'll look at the issue of what are the shortcomings of this product from a yield-management point of view? Is it a tech product issue or a sales and business issue? And I think she will determine relatively quickly that it's a bit of both," he said.

Media Coverage Clip

Source

Forbes (online)

Date

16-Jul-2012

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/07/16/marissa-mayernamedyahoo-ceo-new-most-powerful-woman-in-tech/

Headline

Marissa Mayer Named Yahoo! CEO: New Most Powerful Woman In Tech? By naming engineer Marissa Mayer its new president and CEO, Yahoo! puts its 37year-old leader in the running for the title of the most powerful woman in tech.

Marissa Mayer, 37, Google’s vice president of location and search, has been named the newest CEO of Yahoo!, rocketing her to the front of the line of the most powerful women in tech, not to mention one of the youngest CEOs on the books of the world’s largest companies. And with degrees in symbolic systems and computer science, she’s not just an executive figurehead at the top.

With her appointment as the president and CEO of Yahoo, Mayer becomes the successor to a series of failed leaders at the company, most recently Scott Thompson, who was fired shortly after it was revealed he had fudged his resume. But it also makes her the newest addition to the powerful—and rapidly growing—

69 womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s club in Silicon Valley. Among the most prominent new additions to female leaders, her computer science background sets her above the competition.

Meg Whitman, named CEO of Hewlett Packard in September, holds an M.B.A. and a degree in economics from Princeton. Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook who finally took a seat on the company’s board of directors in June also has a degree in economics and an M.B.A. from Harvard. In fact, of her peers in the upper echelon of Silicon Valley, only Virginia “Ginny” Rometty, who took the lead at IBM in October, holds degrees in tech. She graduated from Northwestern University with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and electrical engineering.

Mayer, though, has never been interested in the conversation surrounding “women in tech.” when we spoke recently she stressed that her interest is, and always will be, putting the most qualified technical talent to work regardless of gender. In fact, she’s grown prickly over the question “where are the women in tech?” in the past. One can only imagine that’s a question the new CEO will be hearing a lot more of as her public profile rises at Yahoo! According to the Times, today will be her last day with Google and will report to work at Yahoo! on Tuesday.

Mayer, a self-described “geek” and Stanford-trained engineer who was Google’s 20th employee, was tapped to lead the company’s location services, including Google Maps, in October when she moved from VP of search to VP of local and

71 location-based products. The move put her squarely in charge of the Internet giantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s next key growth driver: maps, geolocation services and local advertising. She was

72 also named to Google’s operating committee, an elite group of executives that oversees every major product launch and decision.

This spring she was the force behind Google+ Local, an integration of the Web giant’s search technology with its social media network to capitalize on what she calls “this amazing local/mobile/social moment.” The service, which is primarily a mobile one, recommends places “based on places you’ve liked and reviewed in the past, places your friends have liked.”

In a statement, Mayer says: “I am honored and delighted to lead Yahoo!, one of the internet’s premier destinations for more than 700 million users. I look forward to working with the Company’s dedicated employees to bring innovative products, content, and personalized experiences to users and advertisers all around the world.”

Source

Media Coverage Clip Talking Points Memo (online)

Date

16-Jul-2012

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/marissa-mayer-resignsgoogleappointed-yahoo-ceo.php

Headline

Top Google Exec Marissa Mayer Appointed Yahoo CEO Top Google executive and longtime employee Marissa Mayer has resigned from the company to take on the role of CEO of Yahoo, The New York Times Dealbook first reported on Monday afternoon. Yahoo confirmed the appointment shortly after Dealbook broke the story.

“I am honored and delighted to lead Yahoo!, one of the internet’s premier destinations for more than 700 million users,” Mayer said in Yahoo’s official statement. “I look forward to working with the company’s dedicated employees to bring innovative products, content, and personalized experiences to users and advertisers all around the world.”

“I’m incredibly excited to start my new role at Yahoo! tomorrow,” Mayer tweeted as well, acknowledging that she will take control of the company on Tuesday.

74 â&#x20AC;&#x153;Since arriving at Google just over 13 years ago as employee #20, Marissa has been a tireless champion of our users,â&#x20AC;? said Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page in a

75 statement provided to TPM. “She contributed to the development of our Search, Geo, and Local products as well as many other product areas. We will miss her talents at Google.”

Mayer, 37, a software engineer who was hired as Google’s twentieth employee in 1999, rose through the ranks to become one of the company’s most senior and influential leaders, first as vice president of search products and user experiences, then moving to VP of Google’s all important local, maps and location services division in October 2010, which was her role until her resignation from Google on Monday.

Mayer brought a sharp focus on visual design and user experience to Google’s products, and is famously precise, at one point having her team test over 40 shades of blue for Google’s toolbar before settling on the best one.

Mayer resigned from Google by phone, according to Dealbook, also telling the publication she was first approached to lead Yahoo in June, after she returned from a trip to China.

The move instantly caused Yahoo stock to surge in after-hours trading Monday. The Web company still has among the most-viewed homepages online (the

76 fourthmost popular globally, according to third-party tracking firm Alexa), but has struggled in recent years to find a coherent business strategy to compete against the

77 ascendant Google, Facebook, Twitter and other newer destination websites.

As Yahoo’s revenues, primarily ad-based, have fallen along with its stock price in recent years, the company’s leadership has also been a revolving door, with CEOs being hired and fired in rapid fashion: Mayer will be the fourth Yahoo CEO in as many years. Yahoo’s previous CEO, Scott Thompson, formerly President and Chief Technology Officer of PayPal, was ousted after just four months after a rebellious shareholder uncovered information indicating that Thompson had fabricated a credential on his resume (he said he received a bachelor’s degree in computer science, which he did not).

Thompson’s predecessor, Carol Bartz, was fired by the company’s board of directors in late 2011.

“The Board of Directors unanimously agreed that Marissa’s unparalleled track record in technology, design, and product execution makes her the right leader for Yahoo! at this time of enormous opportunity,” said Fred Amoroso, Chairman of the Board of Directors, in Yahoo’s official statement.

Mayer will focus on top-performing Yahoo products and services including “email, finance and sports,” according to Dealbook.

Yahoo is set to release its second quarter earnings on Tuesday, Mayer’s first day of

78 work.

Late update: Mayer tweeted another bit of bombshell news late Monday: “Another piece of good news today - @zackbogue and I are expecting a new baby boy!”

The child would be the first for Mayer and her husband, Zachary Bogue, a startup investor and advisor. The couple married in late 2009.

Mayer told Fortune that her child is due October 7 and is “super-active” and said she could feel him moving around a lot. Mayer also said that none of Yahoo’s board of directors expressed reservations about her taking on the role with her first child on the way. That hasn’t stopped tech and business analysts from airing their concerns and questions about the move, though.

79 Media Coverage Clip Source

All Things Digital (online)

Date

16-Jul-2012

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://allthingsd.com/20120716/marissa-mayer-named-yahoo-ceo/

Headline

Marissa Mayer Named Yahoo CEO, Will Start Tomorrow Marissa Mayer, the long-time Google executive, has been named Yahoo president and CEO, the New York Times first reported.

She resigned from Google Monday and starts at Yahoo Tuesday.

Mayer had been at Google for 13 years, where she led products such as search and local. She told the Times, “It was a reasonably easy decision” to take the Yahoo job as it’s “one of the best brands on the Internet.”

Mayer said in a statement, I am honored and delighted to lead Yahoo, one of the internet’s premier destinations for more than 700 million users. I look forward to working with the Company’s dedicated employees to bring innovative products, content, and personalized experiences to users and advertisers all around the world.

Ross Levinsohn had been Yahoo’s interim CEO after the departure of Scott Thompson in May. The Yahoo board had been considering him for a more permanent

position along with other candidates, including Hulu CEO Jason Kilar.

The move is a big promotion for Mayer, who has not been part of the core leadership team at Larry Pageâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Google despite her long tenure and previous influence at the company.

The Yahoo board, which Mayer will join, said its decision was unanimous.

Mayer has an undergrad degree in symbolic systems and a masters in computer science (yes, a real one) from Stanford University. She is also on the board of Walmart, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Ballet and the New York City Ballet.

Shares of Yahoo, which reports its quarterly earnings tomorrow, were up two percent in after-hours trading.

Mayerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s former Google boss, SVP Commerce and Local Jeff Huber, tweeted his congratulations:

And here’s Google CEO Larry Page’s statement: “Since arriving at Google just over 13 years ago as employee #20, Marissa has been a tireless champion of our users. She contributed to the development of our Search, Geo, and Local products. We will miss her talents at Google.”

Also, here’s a statement from Eric Schmidt: “I worked with Marissa for many years — she’s a great product person, very innovative and a real perfectionist who always wants the best for users. Yahoo has made a good choice and I am personally very excited to see another woman become CEO of a technology company. Best wishes to Marissa and Yahoo!”

82 Media Coverage Clip Source

Techcrunch (online)

Date

16-Jul-2012

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/16/yahoo-marissa-mayer-ceo/

Headline

Longtime Google Exec Marissa Mayer Is Yahoo’s New CEO Marissa Mayer, the technology executive who has worked at Google since the search company’s earliest days, has been appointed CEO of Yahoo.

The news was first reported by the New York Times. The company has confirmed the appointment in a press release, which is embedded in full below.

Mayer’s first day will be tomorrow, which is also when Yahoo’s next quarterly earnings call is slated to take place.

It’s been a tough few years for Yahoo — and its last CEO Scott Thompson departed under less than ideal terms — so the appointment of Mayer is clearly meant to be a fresh start for the long-running Silicon Valley company.

There’s no question that Marissa Mayer is certainly a catch for Yahoo. After receiving a B.S. in symbolic systems and her M.S. in computer science from Stanford (no fudged engineering credentials here) she started at Google in 1999 as the company’s 20th employee and its first female engineer. Since then she has

83 stayed on with the company and served as one of its most public faces, making appearances on the tech conference circuit, network television morning shows, evening newscasts such as Charlie Rose, and even as a frequent TechCrunch Disrupt judge.

That this news is surprising is an understatement — it’s fair to say that most people in tech did not see this coming from a mile away. But when you dig into it, it makes sense. Most recently, it had appeared that Mayer’s role at Google had been scaled back a bit. As part of a Google re-organization some 18 months ago, she moved from a role as VP of search product to a somewhat lower-visibility role as VP of location and local services. With that job change, she was shifted off of Google’s highest strata of executives, according to people familiar with the company.

These shifts may have made her a bit more open to considering new offers — and made an opportunity like this too attractive to pass up. Yahoo’s luster may be a bit faded, but it is still a major, publicly-traded company. It will be very exciting to see what Mayer brings to the table as CEO.

Media Coverage Clip Source

VentureBeat (online)

Date

16-Jul-2012

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/16/googles-marissa-mayer-to-become-newyahooceo/

Headline

Google’s Marissa Mayer is Yahoo’s new CEO In what may be understated as a surprise move for all parties involved, prominent Googler Marissa Mayer may soon be announced officially as Yahoo’s new CEO.

UPDATE, 1:32 p.m. Pacific: Yahoo confirms the news in an investors’ release, saying that Mayer is Yahoo’s new president and CEO as well as its newest board member.

Google co-founder Larry Page also sent a statement to VentureBeat, saying, “Since arriving at Google just over 13 years ago as employee #20, Marissa has been a tireless champion of our users. She contributed to the development of our Search, Geo, and Local products. We will miss her talents at Google.”

Mayer, who was first approached about the Yahoo job just last month, will begin in her new role starting tomorrow.

“I am honored and delighted to lead Yahoo, one of the internet’s premier

85 destinations for more than 700 million users,” said Mayer in the release. “I look forward to working with the company’s dedicated employees to bring innovative products, content, and personalized experiences to users and advertisers all around the world.”

Mayer was one of Google’s first 20 employees and has for many years been one of the company’s more public-facing employees. Her work at Google included the UIs for Google web search and Gmail. In recent years and months, she also headed up location/local services for Google.

In 2010, Fortune magazine listed Mayer as one of the 50 most powerful women in the world. Mayer, 37, is the youngest woman ever to make that list.

Mayer’s appointment as Yahoo’s CEO will put a relatively unsmirched executive with a relatively golden reputation at the head of the troubled company. Yahoo’s past two CEOs have been ousted amid public relations disasters galore.

The foul-mouthed firebrand Carol Bartz was fired last year after a string of poor decisions. Then, early this year, Yahoo made what seemed like a safe bet by hiring former Paypal president Scott Thompson for the job, only to fire Thompson a few months later when the world learned he’d lied on his resume. Yahoo spent the next

86 few weeks doing yet another CEO search. Hulu chief Jason Kilar turned down the job, and Yahoo was set to keep on interim chief executive Ros Levinsohn

87 indefinitely.

All in all, Mayer’s stellar record and public image seem to make her the perfect PR antidote for Yahoo’s hard luck with CEOs.

“Marissa’s unparalleled track record in technology, design, and product execution makes her the right leader for Yahoo at this time of enormous opportunity,” said Yahoo chair Fred Amoroso in a statement.

And a CEO position might be just what the doctor ordered for Mayer, as well. While some might question Mayer’s move from the mighty Google to the struggling Yahoo, the jump from vice president to CEO — and not startup CEO — is a big one for her. She’d be joining tech powerhouses such as IBM CEO Ginny Rometty, HP CEO Meg Whitman, and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg at the top of the executive ladder.

“It was a reasonably easy decision,” Mayer told the New York Times. She noted that she was first offered the job in June 2012.

88 Media Coverage Clip Source

Adweek (online)

Date

16-Jul-2012

Tonality

Positive

URL

http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/digital-industry-cheers-yahoonamesgoogle-exec-marissa-mayer-ceo-141933

Headline

Digital Industry Cheers as Yahoo Names Google Exec Marissa Mayer CEO Usually Yahoo surprises arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t exactly a good thing

89 related. Regardless how the company’s latest stunner , particularly bears outwhen in the CEOlong run, Yahoo shocked the industry on Monday (July 16) afternoon when it announced that high-profile Google executive Marissa Mayer will take the reins as CEO starting Tuesday.

“Wow,” said Vik Kathuria, managing partner of corporate strategy and digital investment at GroupM/MediaCom, upon hearing the news. “I thought [interim CEO] Ross [Levinsohn] had the job. I think everybody did.” While Kathuria admitted to a bit of bias given Levins called the appointment a “great hire” for Yahoo.

ohn’s media and advertising reputation, he

“From where I sit, what’s interesting to me is they really need someone who’s going to focus on the core user experience,” Kathuria said. “Having Marissa at the helm now means a return to the core focus on the Yahoo user, not only on the homepage but also in their key verticals like finance, entertainment and sports. She

90 is an engineer by training.” The first female engineer hired by Google, Mayer resigned as that company’s vp of local, maps and location services on Monday, according to The New York Times, which first reported the news.

B. Riley analyst Sameet Sinha said he was “totally surprised that Yahoo would hire somebody of this quality.” Between her computer science Ph.D. from Stanford University and 13-year tenure at Google—during which time she played a major role in the development of search and the Google homepage—Mayer brings serious technology chops to the struggling online portal. While analysts had said that Yahoo should appoint a credentialed media executive, Sinha said Mayer may lack Levinsohn's media experience but she is well versed in the monetization of media from her time working on search at Google.

Plus Mayer could help resolve the engineering exodus Yahoo has been suffering. “If I’m an engineer at Yahoo, I’m going to be cheered by [the hire],” he said. “Finally we have an engineer—a real engineer and Ph.D. from Stanford no less—at the top, so obviously the engineering culture will foster here. I’m sure she will able to bring on some of the people who worked under her at Google and pull them to Yahoo.”

91 Of course, Mayer isn’t the first product person Yahoo’s tapped as CEO this year. Scott Thompson took the job in January after serving as president of PayPal, and six months, 2,000 layoffs and a resume scandal layer...well, obviously things didn’t

92 work out. Yahoo has been toeing between being a technology company and/or a media company for years, but just because it’s picked from the tech side again doesn’t mean it’s shirking its media identity. “Ultimately every Internet media company has to be a technology company first, and Marissa obviously epitomizes that,” Sinha said.

While Yahoo has cleared up questions about its top position, the fate of interim CEO Ross Levinsohn is uncertain. When word spread earlier this month that he and Hulu CEO Jason Kilar were the top candidates to replace Thompson permanently, investor analysts lobbied for Levinsohn to get the nod, noting that Yahoo could risk losing him altogether.

During his two-month stint as interim CEO, Levinsohn had sown up content deals with CNBC, Spotify and Clear Channel, hired former Admeld CEO and Google exec Michael Barrett as chief revenue officer and amended, even strengthened, ties with Facebook. Of course Mayer was renowned for her ability to attract and keep talent while at Google, so she could very well find a way for Levinsohn to remain, whether or not that be in his former role as the company’s media head. But then again, there’s talk that Hulu will soon be looking for a new CEO.

93 Media Coverage Clip Source

Marketing Land (online)

Date

16-Jul-2012

Tonality

Positive

URL

http://marketingland.com/mayers-appointment-brings-hopes-for-stability-inyahooceo-role-16514

Headline

Mayer’s Appointment Brings Hopes For Stability In Yahoo CEO Role With Marissa Mayer’s appointment as Yahoo’s new CEO, a painful two-month period since disgraced CEO Scott Thompson left has drawn to a very welcome close. Though many believed that interim CEO Ross Levinsohn would eventually be handed the reins at the troubled internet media giant after Thompson’s resume scandal-fueled departure, Mayer’s appointment signals the opening of a new chapter with fresh leadership.

Many were surprised at Yahoo’s ability to lure Mayer, given its recent difficulties and loss of luster, as well as the formidable challenges she will face in trying to turn the once-strong company around.

She’s also a bit of an unexpected choice, in that Yahoo’s board — at least in its last two CEO choices of Carol Bartz and Scott Thompson — has gone outside the Internet media industry, and was said to be looking for someone with CEO

94 experience. But the latest shareholder meeting saw the union of a new Yahoo board, in which 8 of 11 directors had been appointed since the previous annual

95 event.

These new directors are surely hoping that Mayer issues in a long and prosperous new era at Yahoo. At Google, she proved successful at product development in search and has lately been delving into two big industry growth areas — local and mobile. This expertise, and her experience in working at an ad-supported company, will likely serve her well at Yahoo.

For Mayer, the move represents an opportunity to run the show in a way that seemed unlikely to occur at Google, given that the pesky co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin showed no sign of leaving. Though Yahoo’s star has seemed to be in decline, it is still one of the more powerful brands on the Internet, continuing to play a big role in consumers’ everyday experiences online.

Many had high hopes, too, for Scott Thompson, the former President of PayPal, who joined Yahoo only in January before leaving in May in a scandal over allegedly falsifying his resume. His appointment coincided with the resignation of co-founder Jerry Yang, who had once been CEO (and interim CEO) himself. CFO Tim Morse served for a while prior to Thompson, after Carol Bartz was removed in September of 2011.

When Bartz joined, in January of 2009, there was similar hope for a fresh start. She’d had CEO experience, at Autodesk, but no specific digital media credentials.

96 Yahoo’s longest-serving CEOs have been Terry Semel, who served from 2001 to 2007, and Tim Koogle, who took over in 1995 and stayed until 2001.

One unanswered question now will be “What about Ross Levinsohn?” Many considered him to be well-qualified for the top job at Yahoo, and reports at AllThingsD indicate he’s being wooed by several other large media companies. If that’s the case, one of Mayer’s first duties may be finding a replacement.

97 Media Coverage Clip Source

Business Insider (online)

Date

16-Jul-2012

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-is-the-new-ceo-of-yahoo-2012-7

Headline

Marissa Mayer Is The New CEO Of Yahoo She quit Google today and starts her new job tomorrow. Mayer was Google's first woman engineer.

She managed its search product for years. She also led development of iGoogle, Google News, and Gmail. (Check out more on her impressive career here.)

In 2010, she switched to Google Maps and other local products.

In that transition, Mayer went from managing 250 product managers in search and the suite of products around it to supervising 1,100 managers â&#x20AC;&#x201C; people managing engineering, design, marketing and sales. In addition, Mayer supervises some 6,000 contractors.

98 In a statement, Mayer says: â&#x20AC;&#x153;I am honored and delighted to lead Yahoo!, one of the internetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s premier destinations for more than 700 million users. I look forward to working with the Companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dedicated employees to bring innovative products, content, and personalized experiences to users and advertisers all around the

99 world.” Yahoo cofounder David Filo – who famously still works at Yahoo, in a cubicle, says: “Marissa is a well-known, visionary leader in user experience and product design and one of Silicon Valley’s most exciting strategists in technology development. I look forward to working with her to enhance Yahoo's product offerings for our over 700 million unique monthly visitors.” This is an upset: many people thought Ross Levinson, Yahoo's interim CEO, would get the job. Yahoo's last full-time CEO, Scott Thompson, was fired after it was revealed that he had lied about his credentials earlier in his career.

100 Media Coverage Clip Source

The New York Times (online)

Date

17-Jul-2012

Tonality

Negative

URL

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/technology/marissa-mayer-hopes-tobrightenuser-experience-at-yahoo.html?_r=0

Headline

Mayer Hopes to Brighten User Experience at Yahoo SAN FRANCISCO â&#x20AC;&#x201D; It is as if there is a revolving door to the executive suite at Yahoo. So many have filed in and out over the years: Terry Semel, Jerry Yang, Carol Bartz and Scott Thompson. On Tuesday, Marissa Mayer, a Google executive, will join the company as its fifth full-time chief executive in five years.

Her challenge will not only be to resuscitate a struggling company, but to avoid the fate of so many other experienced executives who have run Yahoo.

With 700 million monthly users, Yahoo commands one of the largest audiences on the Web. But the company, an Internet pioneer, has been unable to attract advertisers and increase revenue.

The company continues to cede a greater share of the advertising market to competitors, notably Facebook and Google. The many chief executives have

101 frustrated shareholders with a reliance on cutting costs to improve quarterly earnings reports rather than finding new areas for innovation and growth.

102

The basic problem: the executives have done little to reverse Yahoo’s identity crisis.

Yahoo, while not a dying company, has struggled to stay relevant after it missed the two biggest trends on the Internet: social networks and the move to mobile devices as the gateway to information and entertainment.

That fact has not been lost on Yahoo’s advertisers. Yahoo, once the biggest seller of display ads in the United States, ceded its crown to Facebook and Google last year.

While Facebook and Google enjoy a 16.8 percent and a 16.5 percent share of the online display ad market in the United States this year, Yahoo’s share has fallen to 9.1 percent — a big drop from 2008, when the company’s share of the market stood at 18.4 percent — according to eMarketer.

Ms. Mayer’s first task will be to articulate a vision for Yahoo. She was the first female engineer hired by Google, and she spent 11 years there perfecting Google’s Web search, still the dominant search engine, and became its most recognizable public face. She confidently appeared at conferences, company product announcements and on network morning shows to explain innovations in search

103 and Gmail. The clean look of the search engine was credited to Ms. Mayerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sense of aesthetics.

104

“My focus at Google has been to deliver great end-user experiences, to delight and inspire our end users,” Ms. Mayer said in an interview. “That is what I plan to do at Yahoo, give the end user something valuable and delightful that makes them want to come to Yahoo every day.”

In contrast to Google, Yahoo has no search engine. It turned over that business to Microsoft; people who go to Yahoo to find something on the Web see Microsoft’s Bing. Also in contrast to Google, Yahoo’s site is often cluttered and chaotic.

“Yahoo is getting more focused on products and with the new board — and direction of the company — the timing was right,” Ms. Mayer said.

Most recently, Ms. Mayer oversaw one of Google’s next growth drivers: locationbased products like Google Maps and Google Offers. Yahoo has lagged in this area as well.

“She had a very instrumental role in creating the most powerful monetization engine in the history of the Internet,” said Chris Sacca, a former Google employee, now an early-stage Internet investor. “I remember her ship as being the tightest run as well as the most rewarding for the members of her team.”

Yahoo employees, Mr. Sacca added, “need a vision to rally around and a leader

105 they believe can take them there. I think Marissa is that person.”

Ms. Mayer, 37, also inherits a company that has been through considerable turmoil. Yahoo’s board fired Ms. Bartz, an experienced former chief executive of Autodesk, in an e-mail last September. It then hired Mr. Thompson, a former executive with eBay’s PayPal unit. But only four months into the job, Mr. Thompson was forced to resign amid questions that he had exaggerated academic credentials on his résumé.

Yahoo’s board has also seen its share of turmoil. It recently added three board members, including Daniel Loeb of Third Point, the activist investor and second largest investor in Yahoo, who pressed to have Mr. Thompson fired.

The choice of Ms. Mayer surprised many analysts who had expected that Ross Levinsohn, the company’s interim chief executive and former head of its global media operation, would get the job. Mr. Levinsohn acted as if he would. He had been interviewing candidates for top staff jobs as recently as mid June. Ms. Mayer said Yahoo’s board first approached her on June 18.

Mr. Levinsohn was not available for an interview Monday after the announcement of the new chief executive.

Jordan Rohan, a securities analyst who covers Yahoo and Google at Stifel Nicolaus,

106 said he was surprised Yahoo’s board had chosen Ms. Mayer over Mr. Levinsohn. “I’m taking a wait-and-see approach,” said Mr. Rohan. “She certainly has the intellect. She certainly has the desire, the drive and the credibility. But I’m not sure if the strategic direction of Yahoo is going to change from what Ross would have articulated.”

Scott Kessler, an analyst with S. & P. Capital IQ, said he hoped Mr. Levinsohn would stay with the company but was optimistic about Ms. Mayer’s prospects as chief executive. “Ross has the Internet-media-advertising experience, but she has what the company so desperately needed,” said Mr. Kessler. “In addition to having a background at an Internet advertising company, she’s also an engineer. She has deployed products. She’s managed a business.”

107

Media Coverage Clip Source

GigaOM (online)

Date

17-Jul-2012

Tonality

Negative

URL

http://gigaom.com/2012/07/17/why-marissa-mayer-may-not-be-a-good-fitforyahoo/

Headline

Why Marissa Mayer may not be a good fit for Yahoo In a bombshell announcement that sent shock waves through the entire technology sector, former Google executive Marissa Mayer has become the new chief executive officer of Yahoo: the fifth CEO the faded web giant has had in five years. Until her appointment was announced on Monday, many believed the company’s interim CEO, Ross Levinsohn, had the best shot at the top job because of his focus on media and the content side of Yahoo’s business, which Yahoo supporters believe is one of its few strengths. Mayer, however, is seen as being much more of a product-oriented and technology-focused manager, someone who came up through the engineering side of Google. What does that say about the future of the company as a media entity?

Much of the response to Mayer’s appointment in the technology blogosphere has had an almost reverential tone, which isn’t surprising, given her track record at Google (where she was employee No. 20). Some seem to believe she can turn Yahoo around simply through sheer force of will or that her status as a former

108 Google executive means she will be able to accomplish things Yahoo’s previous five CEOs weren’t able to. But regardless of her experiences at Google, Mayer faces an enormous set of challenges, and despite her impressive resume it’s not clear she has the skills Yahoo requires if it is going to recover.

Does Mayer know what a media company like Yahoo needs?

One of those skills is an understanding of how a modern, web-based media company works and what is required in order for Yahoo to succeed in that market. Since it has either sold off its other assets — in the case of its search business — or de-emphasized them to the point of irrelevance (as it arguably has with properties such as Flickr), Yahoo as it exists now is primarily an online media company. And Mayer has virtually no experience with anything approaching the media business, unless you consider Google to be a media company whose content consists of search results.

That’s why some believed Levinsohn was the right person for the CEO job, since he has been running Yahoo’s media properties for some time now and comes from a digital-media background. Mike Walrath — a former executive at Doubleclick and the former CEO of digital-advertising company Right Media, which he sold to Yahoo in 2007 for $800 million — said in a blog post about Mayer’s appointment that he doesn’t think the former Google executive is a good fit with Yahoo. As he put it:

109

A CEO who understands the media opportunity, and understands that in the world of media “good enough” is good enough when it comes to technology, feels like the right leader for Yahoo. That’s what Ross Levinsohn (and his plan) felt like to me, and I think it was going to work. Walrath’s fear — and that of some others who have been critical of Mayer’s appointment — is the former Google executive is too much of a product-focused and technology-focused person and that those skills aren’t what Yahoo needs right now. Yahoo-watchers may dream of the day when Mayer turns Flickr into the massive photo-sharing success it could have been a decade ago or talk about how she will help Yahoo attract better technology talent, but will any of those things help to ensure the company’s future success? If Mayer is going to focus on building great products, what products might those be?

She could try to focus on media products, but the approach she was known for at Google — where Mayer famously decided what shade of blue Google’s search links should be based on rigorous A/B testing of more than 40 different colors — doesn’t seem like a great fit for that task. As Walrath points out, media isn’t really about technology, so throwing developers at a problem may not be the best solution. Apart from understanding how search engines work, there hasn’t been much actual hard technology behind the rise of new-media giants such as the Huffington Post.

110 Media companies aren’t necessarily about technology

As Forrester analyst Shar VanBoskirk notes, one of the biggest challenges for Yahoo in the past has been defining exactly what it is. Is it a technology company? Is it an advertising platform? Is it an e-commerce player? Each one of the past five CEOs has had a different vision, and Mayer will need to have one too. But is that the kind of thing she will be able to provide? Says VanBoskirk:

Yahoo! needs a strategic visionary, not a product engineer. Yahoo!’s fundamental problem is that it has too many disparate products with no clear unifying thread that ties them all together. And Mayer’s background is in product development . . . not corporate strategy, not marketing, not brand definition . . . the areas where Yahoo! has the most critical need.

It’s possible Mayer could get up to speed fairly quickly on Yahoo’s media-oriented nature and come up with some innovative solutions to its problems, which for the most part have to do with monetizing the massive portals it has in products like Yahoo News, Yahoo Sports and Yahoo Finance. That’s a similar problem to the one that another former Google executive, Tim Armstrong, has been struggling with at AOL, but he hasn’t had much success either, even though he came from the advertising side of Google. Mayer is arguably going to be at an even bigger disadvantage in trying to understand Yahoo’s challenges.

111 The company could try to buy its way into a financial turnaround, as AOL has done with the acquisition of the Huffington Post and a $150 million investment in its Patch hyperlocal news network: Mayer could acquire a host of niche media players like Vox Media, the Bleacher Report or BuzzFeed and try to use them as the foundation of a new kind of Yahoo media property. But without a vision of where that would take the company, it’s difficult to see such a strategy succeeding, and there are no signs that Mayer has one. Levinsohn does, but it’s not clear whether he is going to stick around or not.

There’s no question Marissa Mayer is a smart and capable manager, and she clearly has an appetite for risk or she wouldn’t have taken the Yahoo job in the first place. But she is going to need more than that in order to turn around a company that has now become the poster child for failure and missed opportunity.

112

Media Coverage Clip Source

USA Today: Tech (online)

Date

17-Jul-2012

Tonality

Negative

URL

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-07-16/marissa-mayeryahooceo/56256682/1

Headline

Yahoo gets new CEO: Well-respected Google exec Marissa Mayer

113 SAN FRANCISCO — Longtime Google executive Marissa Mayer— one of Silicon Valley's best-known personalities — starts work today as Yahoo CEO, becoming one of the most prominent female leaders in business.

The struggling Internet giant announced Monday that it is turning to Mayer, 37 — its fifth CEO in five years — to spearhead a massive turnaround effort that has gained little traction the past few years.

Mayer succeeds interim CEO Ross Levinsohn, who took over for the ousted Scott Thompson, who was shown the door on Mother's Day following résumé inaccuracies. Thompson took over for Carol Bartz earlier this year, after she was shown the door.

At Google, Mayer earned kudos for her management of several key technologies and a reputation as a demanding perfectionist. She molded the look and feel of

114 some of the company's best known, and used, products â&#x20AC;&#x201D; services such as Google's search, Gmail and Google News.

The appointment of Mayer, employee No. 20 at Google and one of its few public faces, could perk up spirits among Yahoo employees and investors. Industry analysts such as Jonathan Yarmis called it a PR master stroke for Yahoo, which has struggled mightily to attract, and keep, top-flight talent in its competitive battle with Google and Facebook.

"I'm surprised and impressed," says Yarmis, an analyst at HfS Research who thinks Mayer's hiring could aid in recruiting efforts. "Yahoo has been able to attract someone of the highest caliber here, someone who understands the business. This is really the first thing out of Yahoo in a decade that you can't snicker at. She's the kind of person you didn't think Yahoo could get." Wall Street applauded the news, lifting Yahoo shares 2% to $15.98 in after-hours trading.

"I am honored and delighted to lead Yahoo, one of the Internet's premier destinations for more than 700 million users," Mayer said in a statement.

Mayer, Google's first female engineer, joins a short list of female CEOs at large public tech companies. The elite club includes Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman and IBM CEO Virginia Rometty. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief

115 operating officer, essentially runs day-to-day operations.

"I am personally very excited to see another woman become CEO of a technology company," Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said in a statement.

During her 13 years at Google, Mayer was responsible for shaping Google's most popular products â&#x20AC;&#x201D; ranging from its search home page to Gmail and Google Images. Recently, she oversaw the company's location and local services, including Google Maps, encompassing more than 1,000 product managers.

Mayer also sat on Google's operating committee that advised Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Google CEO Page, in a statement, called Mayer "a tireless champion of our users."

As an early Google employee, Mayer was also something of a celebrity in Silicon Valley. She often spoke at high-profile tech conferences, posed in fashion spreads, including Vogue, was frequently reported in local high-society columns and lived in a posh penthouse in San Francisco's Four Seasons. She's also a connoisseur of cupcakes.

Still, the move to Yahoo is an opportunity for Mayer to claim a bigger stage.

116 "This is a Hail Mary pass," says Peter Shankman, an independent marketing strategist based in New York City. "If this one doesn't do it, the clock has pretty much ticked out." A ticklish to-do list

Questions remain whether Mayer can make a difference at Yahoo. Some openly wonder if Mayer's appointment will make a dent. And whether Yahoo might besmirch her stellar reputation if things don't work out.

"She's not at Google anymore, and if she's going to try and out-Google Google, that would be a terrible mistake," analyst Yarmis says. "Clearly, she saw that her path to the top at Google wasn't going well, and revenge can be a powerful, and dangerous, motive."

Mayer's appointment brings a person with cachet and connections to Yahoo, analysts say. But Yahoo has defined itself as a media company working to attract advertising dollars, an agenda echoed by former interim CEO Levinsohn. Mayer's Google tenure and engineering background could signal an about-face for Yahoo.

"She's an engineering type, which in some ways is good news. Ross Levinsohn had said they would focus as a media company, and that was not necessarily good news," says IDC analyst Karsten Weide.

117

Yahoo's advertising sales business needs to change to shore up its shortcomings

118 says. "The future of display advertising will be sold automatically, algorithmically."

, he

The situation isn't entirely dire. The portal attracts about 700 million visitors a month, which helped it generate nearly $1 billion in ad sales last quarter.

But that business is under siege from Google, Facebook and an armada of ups startvying for eyeballs and revenue. Yahoo's slice of the nearly $40 billion U.S. online ad market â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 16% in 2009 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; was 9.5% in 2011 and could slide to 7.4% this year, according to eMarketer. Whether the new CEO and a new board are the fix remains an open question. Analysts will be closely watching Third Point CEO Daniel Loeb, whose hedge fund owns 5.8% of Yahoo and has won three board seats. A hedge fund's influence "runs the risk of making decisions that are good for the short term but not for the long term," Morningstar analyst Rick Summer says.

The January hiring of Thompson, the highly successful CEO of eBay's PayPal unit, was Yahoo's latest stab at a turnaround.

Thompson's hasty exit in May complicated a restructuring plan he put into place that included 2,000 layoffs. It was the latest in a series of missteps the past few years highlighted by multiple CEOs, executive defections, a patent dispute with

119 Facebook, reorganizations and questions about deals with tech partners Microsoft

120 and Alibaba.

For Mayer, it all adds up to inheriting a wayward ship with an uncertain future.

121 Media Coverage Clip Source

ABC News (online)

Date

17-Jul-2012

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/marissa-mayer-yahoos-ceo/story?id=16794252

Headline

Marissa Mayer: Meet Yahoo's New CEO Today Marissa Mayer takes over as Yahoo's new CEO. She comes directly from Google, and if you believe the technology pundits, she provides the hope and capability to turn the company around.

"She comes into Yahoo with a massive and impressive pedigree, a personal agenda to showcase she was the more qualified CEO candidate, and she'll go a long way toward creating a belief that Yahoo can be turned around," Rob Enderle, a longtime industry analyst and head of the Enderle Group, told ABC News.

"She's a proven manager at scale. She knows how to run these companies at scale. There aren't that many product managers in our industry who can manage at scale," Marc Andreeseen, who leads one of the top venture capital firms in the world, told Business Insider.

So who is this woman who has both the tech community and Wall Street all giddy?

122 Wait, who is Marissa Mayer again?

Monday Marissa Mayer was the vice president of location and local services at Google. She was one of the search giant's top executives. Today she started as the CEO of Yahoo. She is 37 years old and is pregnant with her first child.

She is pregnant?

Yes, Mayer confirmed to Fortune that she is pregnant. Additonally, according to technology site AllThingsD, the Yahoo board didn't even consider her pregnancy part of the conversation.

Is she the first woman CEO of Yahoo?

No. Carol Bartz led the company from 2009 to 2011. Mayer has been considered one of the most powerful women in technology and business for years, earning her spots on lists from Forbes and Fortune to Glamour magazine.

How much experience did she have at Google? A heck of a lot. She joined Google in 1999 as the 20th employee, and she was the company's first female engineer. Over the 13-year span she engineered and designed products, and led whole divisions. She has been described as a strong product visionary and perfectionist when it comes to product design.

123

124

What products did she work on at Google? Again, a heck of a lot. She helped worked on Google Search in the early years as well as Google News, Gmail and most recently Google Maps. This "Nightline" interview with Mayer from 2007, when she was vice president of Google Search and user experience, reveals the extent to which Mayer was involved in product decisions.

What's her educational background?

Mayer majored in engineering at Stanford University, where she earned an M.S. in computer science and B.S. in symbolic systems.

What other technology companies has she invested in?

Mayer was an early investor in Square, a mobile payment company started by the co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey. She is also an investor in Airtime, Minted, uBeam, and sits on the board of Walmart. Why go to Yahoo from Google?

Mayer hasn't directly answered that question but said in an interview with the New York Times that she "had an amazing time at Google." She also added that "it was a

125 reasonably easy decision" as Yahoo is "one of the best brands on the Internet."

What does she plan to focus on at Yahoo?

According to that same interview with the New York Times, she plans to focus on the company's leading products, including email, finance and sports. She also wants to focus on mobile and video broadband.

Can she do it?

We can't answer that yet, but given the fact that Yahoo has had five CEOs in the past five years, Mayer has a lot of work to do and a big ship to steer. As Andreesen told Business Insider, "The thing about turnarounds is that they take time. It's three to five years to do the job. So one of the things she needs is for the board to support her for that period of time."

126

Media Coverage Clip Source

The Washington Post (online)

Date

17-Jul-2012

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/yahoo-names-marissamayeras-ceo/2012/07/16/gJQAkUGIpW_story.html

Headline

Yahoo names Marissa Mayer as CEO Yahoo threw a curveball Monday, naming Marissa Mayer, who has been Google’s vice president of location services, as its new chief executive.

Mayer spoke to

Dealbook’s Andrew Ross Sorkin confirming that she has resigned

from Google and will be Yahoo’s top executive, taking over for interim chief executive Ross Levinsohn. Mayer will be Yahoo’s second female CEO.

Yaho o has had four chief executives in the past year, following its unceremonious firing of Carol Bartz in September. After Bartz was let go, interim chief executive Tim Morse, the company’s chief operating officer, stepped in to take over. After Morse, Yahoo went with former PayPal executive Scott Thompson, who was subsequently chased out of office in just five months after questions were raised about his academic record. Yahoo then tapped its head of global media, Ross Levinsohn, for the job while it looked for another candidate.

127

Levinsohn, a popular figure in the company, was considered to be a top contender for the position, particularly after Yahoo successfully launched its mobile Axis browser and settled a high-profile patent lawsuit with Facebook in his short time at the helm.

Larry Page, CEO of Google, released a statement Monday afternoon: “Since arriving at Google just over 13 years ago as employee #20, Marissa has been a tireless champion of our users,” Page said. “She contributed to the development of our Search, Geo, and Local products. We will miss her talents at Google.”

Yahoo did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

Mayer is well-known in tech circles for being Google’s first female engineer and has been in charge of several important projects there, including Google’s core search division. Most recently, she has been the vice president of location and local services. According to a report from Business Insider, Mayer had direct supervision over 1,100 managers in that role, as well as 6,000 contractors. The report said that gave her control over 20 to 25 percent of the company.

In a news release, Mayer said that she is excited to take on the new challenge.

“Yahoo!’s products will continue to enhance our partnerships with advertisers,

128 technology and media companies, while inspiring and delighting our users. There is a lot to do and I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t wait to get started,â&#x20AC;? Mayer said.

129 Media Coverage Clip Source

Time: Business & Money (online)

Date

17-Jul-2012

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://business.time.com/2012/07/17/can-google-star-marissa-mayer-save-yahoo/

Headline

Can Google Star Marissa Mayer Save Yahoo!?

Marissa Mayer, Google’s 20th employee and a 37-year-old self-proclaimed “geek,” was already one of the most respected executives in Silicon Valley. But her appointment as the new CEO of Internet giant Yahoo! instantly propels her to a whole new level: Mayer is now one of the most prominent female chief executives in the world. It’s an inspired — and inspiring — choice for Yahoo!, which desperately needs an injection of fresh energy after a series of failed CEOs and eroding esprit de corps.

On Monday, a few hours after her appointment was announced, Mayer revealed to Fortune that she is pregnant with her first child, due on October 7.

Industry observers greeted news of Mayer’s hiring warmly. But once the euphoria wears off, she’ll face a steep challenge: reversing a years-long slide that has seen the onetime Internet pioneer eclipsed by Google, its erstwhile search rival, as well as newer upstarts like Facebook and Twitter. Yahoo!’s turnaround will come into

sharp relief Tuesday

130 close of the stock market.

, when the company reports second quarter earnings after the

Mayer’s appointment is a high water

-mark in what was already a distinguished

career. A Wausau, Wisconsin native, Mayer joined Google in 1999 after earning a B.S. in Symbolic Systems and an M.S. in Computer Science at Stanford University, where she specialized in artificial intelligence. She was Google’s first female engineer and the company’s 20th employee overall. She quickly took the helm of the company’s user interface team, where she was instrumental in developing Google’s iconic, minimalist search box layout. Mayer would eventually become responsible for many of Google’s most successful consumer-facing products, including Gmail, Google News, and Google Maps. At the search giant, she -like focus on the user experience, and became a developed a reputation for her laser compelling spokesperson for a company that for many years was ambivalent — to about public relations. In a statement, Google CEO Larry Page put it mildly — called Mayer “a tireless champion of our users,” and said, “we will miss her talents

at Google.” At Google, Mayer’s intensity was legendary, even at a company filled with brilliant engineers, according to Douglas Edwards, an early Google employee who served as brand manager at the company from 1999 to 2005. “If everyone else at Google was watt bulb illuminating a single corner of the company, Marissa was a a hundredflashing neon sign, casting light and shadow in all colors across the entire

131 Googleplex,” Edwards wrote in his 2011 book I’m Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59.

Mayer became a trusted adviser to Google founders Page and Sergey Brin, and eventually joined the company’s elite operating committee, responsible for overall management of the search giant. But in recent years, Mayer’s ascent within Google appeared to have stalled, especially after Page shook up the company’s management ranks upon succeeding Eric Schmidt as CEO last year. For the ambitious Mayer, the chance to assume command at one of the most well-known Internet companies in the world seems to have been too good to pass up.

“I am honored and delighted to lead Yahoo!, one of the Internet’s premier destinations for more than 700 million users,” Mayer said in a statement Monday. “I look forward to working with the company’s dedicated employees to bring innovative products, content, and personalized experiences to users and advertisers all around the world.” Mayer’s first day on the job is Tuesday — she delivered her resignation to Google by phone Monday — but it’s unclear if she will join Yahoo!’s earnings call after the stock market closes. Late Monday, Mayer disclosed that she’s pregnant with her first child with husband Zachary Bogue, a Bay Area lawyer.

Yahoo! is clearly hoping that Mayer’s appointment represents a clean break from the tumult of the last few years. The situation reached a nadir earlier this year

132

133 during a bizarre episode involving former CEO Scott Thompson, who admitted he didn’t posses the computer science degree he listed on his resume when he got the Yahoo! job. Thompson, who had replaced the outspoken Carol Bartz as CEO, was soon jettisoned. Veteran media executive Ross Levinsohn was named interim CEO, and although many observers speculated that he might be tapped for the permanent job, Yahoo!’s board clearly felt that more drastic change was needed. “Marissa is a well-known, visionary leader in user experience and product design and one of Silicon Valley’s most exciting strategists in technology development,” Yahoo! cofounder David Filo said in a statement.

By picking Mayer, an accomplished engineer with a keen eye for design, Yahoo! is signaling that it intends to make technology and user experience top priorities. For Yahoo!’s long-suffering engineers, that should be good news. Still, the company faces a steep climb to return to its former glory. In recent years, Yahoo! has been adrift, lacking a clear vision and strategy as it’s been eclipsed by Google as well as social media upstarts like Facebook and Twitter. Yahoo! still has a massive audience, but it no longer commands the respect it once did. Yahoo!’s stock is down 40% over the last five years, and has stagnated since 2010, but rose 2% in after-hours trading on news of Mayer’s hiring.

Wall Street analysts offered cautious praise. “We believe Mayer’s background as one of Google’s earliest engineers and her experience overseeing key products suggests the company will refocus on the user experience and pace of innovation,”

134 JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth wrote in a note to clients. “Importantly, we believe Mayer may also be able to attract more high quality engineering talent to Yahoo!, which we think is needed after several years of strategic and leadership flux.” Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney called the hire “bold” and said he has “high regards for Ms. Mayer’s organizational skills, consumer Internet industry knowledge and her ability to focus efforts of a large team of engineers on product innovation.”

Mayer’s first job will be inspiring her troops to believe in Yahoo! once again. She’ll have to develop a vision of where she wants to take the company, and then map out a plan to execute on that vision. This turnaround won’t happen overnight; it will be a long road. But for now, Yahoo! employees, shareholders, and Silicon Valley at-large should savor Mayer’s appointment. It’s the most inspired decision the purple-hued Internet portal has taken in many years.

135

Media Coverage Clip Source

The Wall Street Journal (online)

Date

17-Jul-2012

Tonality

Positive

URL

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303754904577531230541447956.ht ml

Headlin e

Google's Mayer Takes Over as Yahoo Chief

136 Yahoo Inc. YHOO +0.58% reached insidex the ranks of rival Google Inc. GOOG +0.91% in its latest changing of the guard, appointing longtime Web-search executive Marissa Mayer as its new chief and returning the struggling Internet company to a leader with deep technology experience.

The appointment showed how Yahoo, a onetime pioneer of Web search and online advertising, is going back to its Silicon Valley Internet roots.

Yahoo's board selected Ms. Mayer because "she stands for the user," in contrast with a string of the company's previous CEOs who had little experience with consumer websites, said a person with direct knowledge of the company's CEO search.

In particular, Yahoo's board membersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;including the three newest directors led by hedge fund manager Dan Loeb, who joined in Mayâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;pushed the Sunnyvale, Calif., company to find a product expert who could make Yahoo more relevant to today's

137 Internet users, said this person. Ms. Mayer, 37 years old, had long been on the Yahoo board's shortlist of CEO candidates, said people familiar with the matter.

Talks with the Google vice president increased in the past few weeks after an initial approach on June 18. The board felt that someone with Ms. Mayer's statureâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;she was employee no. 20 at Google and helped design the look of the now-dominant search engineâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;would especially help Yahoo attract new talent to develop new Web services, said the person familiar with the CEO search.

In naming Ms. Mayer, Yahoo passed over interim CEO Ross Levinsohn, who had overseen the company following the exit in May of Scott Thompson, a former president of eBay Inc.'s PayPal, over some misstated credentials. Mr. Levinsohn, who couldn't be reached, has a background in media and ad sales.

Ms. Mayer and her husband, investor and entrepreneur Zack Bogue, are expecting their first child.

A Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment about Ms. Mayer's compensation details. Inside Yahoo, reactions to Ms. Mayer's appointment ranged from shock and delight among some company's employees who work on its various Web services, to disappointment among some employees in the company's important sales arm who

138

139 had been following a relatively new strategy

Other managers privately expressed concern that yet another CEO would lead to reorganizations and attrition could accelerate.

In recent years, the company has gone through a revolving door of CEOs, including Mr. Thompson and Carol Bartz, who was removed in September. Ms. Mayer becomes Yahoo's sixth CEO in five years, including two interim CEOs.

As head of 17-year-old Yahoo, Ms. Mayer will try to orchestrate one of the most notable turnarounds in corporate America. Yahoo's revenue has receded in the past few years as companies like Google and Facebook Inc. have siphoned away users and advertising dollars.

Yahoo has also faced pressure from activist investor Mr. Loeb, while co-founder Jerry Yang and other directors have left the board. That has resulted in an almost brandnew board, opening the way to Ms. Mayer's recruitment.

After Ms. Mayer joins Yahoo's board, nine of the company's 12 directors will have joined this year, including four since May.

In an interview, Ms. Mayer said, "Yahoo is a company with an amazing following, terrific brand and huge amount of potential."

140

141

In a statement, Yahoo chairman Fred Amoroso cited Ms. Mayer's "unparalleled track record in technology, design, and product execution" and said those make her "the right leader for Yahoo."

Ms. Mayer's departure is the latest exit from Google, where executives like Sheryl Sandberg have jumped ship in recent years to companies such as Facebook, though Google retains a deep bench of talent. Ms. Mayer is the most visible departure since Google co-founder Larry Page, who she once dated, was appointed CEO of the Internet search giant in April 2011.

Ms. Mayer said after she broke the news of the Yahoo job to Google's leaders, she received positive encouragement from Mr. Page, executive chairman Eric Schmidt, and company co-founder Sergey Brin. She also posted on Google's social networking service Google+, writing that she's "incredibly excited" to be taking on the new job.

In a statement, Mr. Schmidt praised Ms. Mayer as a "great product person" and added that "Yahoo has made a good choice." He added that he gives Ms. Mayer and Yahoo his "best wishes."

Wall Street appeared to welcome the move, with Yahoo's stock rising 2% to $15.96 in after-hours trading after the CEO appointment became public.

142

143 Yahoo's strategy has shifted in recent months under its changing leadership, causing some investors to wonder what the company's direction will be. With Ms. Mayer, analysts expect a focus on Yahoo's core online advertising business.

"Marissa gets both search and display advertising," said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis. Ms. Mayer made clear Monday that "advertising will continue to be the main revenue source" at Yahoo. She described Yahoo's position in online display and search advertising as "strong" and added that she hopes to "inject some innovation and some new ways of advertising" into its business model.

Ms. Mayer said didn't know whether Mr. Levinsohn would be staying but said she had reached out to him on Monday. She said she planned an initial visit to Yahoo headquarters on Tuesday, her first day as CEO.

With Ms. Mayer's selection, there now are 20 female CEOs of Fortune 500 companiesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a record number, according to Catalyst, a nonprofit New York group that researches women's issues. Altogether, 41 women run Fortune 1000 companies, Catalyst figures show.

Ms. Mayer joined Google in 1999 and led many of its well-known products, including the look of the search engine. Most recently, she was responsible for initiatives related to local businesses and spearheaded Google's acquisition of Zagat, the

144 business-reviews site.

Last year, after Mr. Page became Google CEO, he promoted a handful of executives to lead business units such as Android, Chrome and commerce and local initiativesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; but not Ms. Mayer. She has a computer-science master's degree from Stanford University and recently joined the board of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Ms. Mayer is known as a talented manager with an occasionally brusque style that can make her difficult to work for, according to people who have worked under her. She has an obsessive attention to detail, often micromanaging details down to the shade of colors in new product designs, these people say.

She's well-known throughout Silicon Valley, in part for her elaborate parties that regularly draw the tech elite. They include a Halloween pumpkin carving bash and an annual winter holiday party where she erects an ice-skating rink in the backyard of her Palo Alto, Calif., home.

145 Media Coverage Clip Source

The Verge (online)

Date

17-Jul-2012

Tonality

Positive

URL

http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/17/3164462/marissa-mayer-brief-historyyahooceo

Headline

Marissa Mayer: a brief history of Yahoo's new CEO Marissa Mayer started as the CEO of Yahoo today, after spending the last 13 or so years at Google managing various products at different times, including its most profitable (Search) as well as its most fanciful (Google Yahoo).

Regardless of her shifting roles and titles, Mayer has been one of Google’s most public faces for years. She’s one of the few recognizable personalities at the company besides founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and has appeared everywhere from insidery trade shows like TechCrunch Disrupt to the pages of Glamour. She’s best known as a meticulous — some say over-controlling — product designer who blossoms in the spotlight.

Yahoo’s board reportedly picked Mayer over interim CEO Ross Levinsohn, formerly the head of global media. By doing so, the company has chosen to focus on products rather than content or advertising. It’s the first clear direction Yahoo’s had in years. It also represents a stark contrast to the strategy taken by rival AOL, run by former Google ad man Tim Armstrong, which opted to become a digital

146 publisher with the acquisition of The Huffington Post.

After news of Mayer’s appointment broke late Monday, Yahoo’s stock jumped 2.3 percent as investors gave Mayer their vote of confidence. The once-dominant web company has been fading into irrelevance for years, and a young, articulate executive from one of the web’s leading innovators seems like the perfect antidote. "She's exactly what Yahoo needs," former Google lead designer Kevin Fox wrote on his blog.

If Mayer was such a star, what made her leave? Mayer was hired as employee #20 at Google immediately after graduating from Stanford with bachelor's and master’s degrees in computer science in 1999. From the beginning, she was a polarizing figure. Douglas Edwards, Google employee #59, portrayed her as brilliant but difficult to work with in his book about the early days of Google. Doug Bowman, Google’s visual design lead for three years and something of a celebrity within the design community, passive-aggressively blamed Mayer for Google’s emphasis on data over good design when he resigned in 2009. One source told The Verge that Mayer was "universally hated" by the staff; another said Mayer was frequently trailed by a gaggle of fanboys when walking around Google’s Mountain View offices.

If Mayer has a fan club, Yahoo’s board of directors is in it — especially after burning through four CEOs in five years. "The Board of Directors unanimously

147

148 agreed that Marissa's unparalleled track record in technology, design, and product execution makes her the right leader for Yahoo at this time of enormous opportunity," chairman Fred Amoroso said in a press release. But while few have been as intimate with Google’s myriad products as Mayer, she seemed to have plateaued at Google. After five years as vice president of search products and user experience, she was shifted to vice president of location and local services, which at the time was characterized as a promotion. Pundits interpreted Mayer’s move as an indication that Google was ready to focus seriously on its nonsearch products.

In reality, Mayer’s relative stature within the company was diminishing — she just couldn’t seem to crack into the top ranks. Jeff Huber, who joined Google four years after Mayer, was promoted to senior vice president of local and commerce in 2011, a level above Mayer. Meanwhile, Mayer was dropped from the elite "operating committee" known as the L Team (for "Larry’s team") after less than a year.

Google is also changing. During the Mayer era, data was king and Google was constantly launching new products fast and hard. Now the company is putting a heavier emphasis on design and narrowing its focus, deprecating marginal products in order to focus on a few core offerings including Google+ and search. Earlier this month Google announced that one of the projects credited to Mayer, iGoogle, will be shut down; other products in her portfolio, including Google Earth, are far from the top of the company’s priority list. Meanwhile, Google’s local effort was

149

150 floundering before and after Mayer moved to the location and local department. Prior to her transfer, Google flubbed attempts to acquire fast-growing local services including Yelp and Groupon. After her transfer, Google bought old media empire Zagat. The acquisition, which Mayer personally announced in a haiku tweet, was received with skepticism. So far, the $100 to $200 million buy has had little visible impact other than Zagat reviews appearing on Google Maps and on Google+ pages, an addition of debatable value which presumably could have been accomplished with just a partnership.

The ambitious executive started to recognize that she had no path to a top position such as COO or CEO, said a former colleague who worked closely with Mayer at Google. Taking the top job at Yahoo was "a reasonably easy decision," Mayer told the Times.

Under former CEO Carol Bartz, Yahoo launched a long list of forgettable feature updates to B-list services like Yahoo Music as well as the Yahoo Contributor Network content farm. But Yahoo’s identity crisis is Mayer’s blank slate. Her style is to launch lots of products and evolve them quickly based on data. Google Labs, the experimental sandbox where very early product versions were tested, was shut down last year. Yahoo Labs, a network of talented but rudderless researchers, is ripe for leadership. Yahoo is visited by roughly 700 million people a month and owns the most popular web-based email service in the U.S. Under its new ambitious, decisive leader, it has a chance to rejoin the web’s innovators.

151 Appendix B Social Media Clipping â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Twitter (Issue 1) Neutral

Positive

152

153

Negative

154

Appendix C Media Coverage Summary (Issue 2)

No.

Headline 1. Why Yahoo May Buy Tumblr: It’s All About The Kids 2. Hell No, Tumblr Users Won’t Go To Yahoo! 3. Yahoo to Buy Tumblr for $1.1 Billion

Author

Date

Dino Gradoni

17-May-2013 Huffington Post (online)

Ingrid Lunden

18-May-2013 TechCrunch Negative (online) 19-May-2013 The New York Neutral Times (online)

Michael J. de la Merced, Nick Bilton and Nicole Perlroth

4. Yahoo acquires Tumblr in Hayley $1.1 billion deal Tsukayama

Source

Tonality Negative

5. Yahoo buying Tumblr for $1.1 billion, vows not to screw it up 6. Yahoo’s Tumblr purchase fraught with challenges

Alexei Oreskovic and Jennifer Saba

20-May-2013 The Washington Post (online) 20-May-2013 Reuters (online)

Jon Swartz and Roger Yu

20-May-2013 USA Today (online)

Negative

7. Yahoo’s Tumblr Deal Brings Challenges, Opportunities 8. What Yahoo Bought With A Billion Dollars: Hope

Spencer E. Ante, Amir Efrafti and Joann S. Lublin Matt Buchanan

20-May-2013 Wall Street Journal (online) 20-May-2013 The New Yorker (online) 20-May-2013 ABC News (online)

Positive

20-May-2013 Wired Magazine (online)

Negative

9. Will Yahoo! Do To Tmblr What It Did To Flickr & Romina Puga GeoCities? 10. Yahoo’s Past Buys Tell a Marcus Wohlsen Tale of Mediocrity and Failure

Neutral

Positive

Negative

155 11. Tumblr Will Operate Independently: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer 12. Yahoo’s Got Tumblr’s Teens – But For How Long? 13. Making Sense of Yahoo’s Puzzling Acquisition Strategy 14. Searching for Strategy in Yahoo!’s Shopping Spree

Paul Toscano

21-May-2013 CNBC (online)

Neutral

Bianca Bosker

21-May-2013 Huffington Post (online)

Negative

Eric Markowitz

18-Jun-2013 Inc. Magazine Negative (online)

Mathew Ingram

5-Jul-2013

Bloomberg Negative Businessweek (online) CNN Money Negative (online)

15. How one year of Marissa Julianne Pepitone Mayer has changed Yahoo

15-Jul-2013

16. Marissa Mayer’s First Year at Yahoo: Don’t Call It a Comeback 17. Finding The Logic Behind Marissa Mayer’s Monster Acquisition Spree 18. Yahoo and Google Are Both Spending Big Money On Acquisition Sprees And What That Says About Their Futures 19. The 20 Startups Marissa Mayer Has Acquired at Yahoo 20. Marissa Mayer Flushes $81 Million More Of Yahoo’s Cash And Stock For David Karp

Seth Fiegerman

16-Jul-2013

Mashable (online)

Neutral

Jay Yarow

28-Jul-2013

Negative

Rip Empson

29-Jul-2013

Business Insider (online) TechCrunch (online)

Lauren Indvik

1-Aug-2013

Mashable (online)

Positive

Peter Cohan

12-Aug-2013 Forbes (online)

Negative

156 Media Coverage Clip Source

Huffington Post (online)

Date

17-May-2013

Tonality

Negative

URL

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/17/yahootumblr_n_3293349.html

Headline

Why Yahoo May Buy Tumblr: It's All About The Kids

Text

it can afford that would make it

157 Yahoo is eyeing the one social network feel young again. The company is considering buying Tumblr, according to two separate reports on AllThingsD and Adweek. AllThingsD reports that Yahoo would consider an investment or corporate alliance in addition to outright buying all the Tumblogs; Adweek is more confident, stating that "Yahoo is in serious talks" to buy Tumblr. Both cite a valua of $1itsbillion. The site, known for cat GIFs and amateur porn, expectstion to turn profit this year. first And so another social network that hasn't proven profitable mightusers earning struggling to attract web a 10-figure buy. It seems it's become an annual tradition. If you'll recall, Facebook scooped up Instagram in 2012 in a deal that at the time was worth $1 billion, although ultimately worked out to $736.5 million, after the company's stock dropped. What gives? It's the need for the youngs. Tumblr may be Yahoo's best shot at gaining an audience of young people. The aging tech company much fanfare last year, is , which Marissatethered Mayer took as CEO to in 20s while it holds onto an older audience to theover company their teens and with 90s and early-aughtseraapp email accounts. Though Yahoo itself doesn't offer solid numbers, the Hunch estimated in 27 2011 that 42 Yahoo email users are between 35 and 64. Only percent of percent Gmail of users are in that age bracket. Yahoo is missing the the sweetthat advertisers climb over each other to get. And it certainly is missing teens, the young adults of the future spot that demographic brands also of spend 24- to lots 35-year-olds of money to impress. That's where Tumblr comes in. Yahoo has a small fortune of $3 billion in cash to spend, a remainder from its heyday in the 1990s. And surveying the landscape of websites teens use, the blogging network is the most popular one that Yahoo can afford.

158 Media Coverage Clip Source Date Tonality URL

TechCrunch (online) 18-May-2013 Negative http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/18/hell-no-tumblr-users-wont-go-toyahoo/

Headline Hell No, Tumblr Users Won’t Go To Yahoo! Text

We’ve all by now heard about how Yahoo is trying to get some “cool” with a supposed $1 billion purchase of hip blogging platform Tumblr, but it may be a moot point if Tumblr’s users fail to stick around post-sale. Microsoft and Facebook may be trying to make a move ahead of Yahoo, Tumblr may be inching ever closer to running out of cash, and (despite that) may not be afraid to play a little hardball. But here’s something you’re not hearing much about: Tumblr’s users are almost universally unhappy with the news that the site might get sold to Yahoo. And they may let their fingers do the talking, and the walking. Do a search on Tumblr for “yahoo” and you get a stream of distress, interspersed with the occasional bit of helpless resignation, and some calls for activism. The voices of reluctant acceptance (usually because of the aforementioned cash situation) or anything like positivity are few and far between. No outright enthusiasm. It’s a problem that extends to some of Tumblr’s oldest users. “If Tumblr goes to Yahoo, I will seriously consider moving my personal blog to Medium, if that’s possible,” Alexia, co-editor over here at TC, told me. She’s had a blog on Tumblr since June 2009, and, while not part of that coveted 18-24 age bracket, is a significant representative of that other cadre of important users: digital influencers. “I don’t know exactly why, but my Tumblr is a part of my identity. And for whatever reason, I don’t want to identify with Yahoo.” Some have tried to start a petition, with a goal of 5 million signatures, although others are cynical about whether this will actually have any effect. User attrition is not something to be dismissed, especially when it appears to be underpinned by wider usage trends on the site.

159 When I wrote a post in January about what might come next for Tumblr as a business (it focused on how it could make money; not how it might need to get sold because it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t), I noted that in the prior month, December 2012, it had 167 million visitors and nearly 18 billion pageviews worldwide (Quantcast figures). The trend over the last six months are down, however: in the U.S. page views are down 21% to 5.3 billion, and uniques down 5% to 76 million. Worldwide, the picture is better but still not growing: pageviews are down by 4%; uniques are down by 3%. Not a sinking ship, but not a zippy little speedboat, either. Yahooâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s MySpace, indeed.

160 Media Coverage Clip Source Date Tonality URL

The New York Times (online) 19-May-2013 Negative http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/technology/yahoo-to-buy-tumblrfor1-1-billion.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Headline Yahoo to Buy Tumblr for $1.1 Billion Text

The board of Yahoo, the faded Web pioneer, agreed on Sunday to buy the popular blogging service Tumblr for about $1.1 billion in cash, the companies announced Monday, a signal of how the company plans h into to reposition itself as the technology industry makes a headlong rus social media. The deal would be the largest acquisition of a social networking company in years, surpassing Facebook’s $1 billion purchase of Instagram last year. For Yahoo and its chief executive, Marissa Mayer, buying Tumblr would be a bold move as she tries to breathe new life into the company. The deal, the seventh since Ms. Mayer defected from Google last summer to take over the company, would be her biggest yet. It is meant to give her company more appeal to young people, and to make up for years of missing out on the revolutions in social networking and mobile devices. Tumblr has over 108 million blogs, with many highly active users. Yet even with all those users, a basic question about Tumblr and other social media sites remains open: Can they make money? Founded six years ago, Tumblr has attracted a loyal following and raised millions from big-name investors. Still, it has not proved that it can be profitable, nor that it can succeed on mobile devices, which are becoming the gateway to the Internet. Even Facebook faces continued pressure from investors to show it can increase its profits and adapt to the mobile world. “

The challenge has always been, how do you monetize eyeballs?” said

161 Charlene Li, the founder of the Altimeter Group, a consulting firm. “Services like Instagram and Facebook always focus on the user experience first. Once that loyalty is there, they figure out how to carefully, ideally, make money on it.” If the deal is approved, Ms. Mayer will face the challenge of successfully managing the takeover, given Yahoo’s notorious reputation for paying big money for start-ups and then letting the prizes wither. Previous acquisitions by Yahoo, like the purchase of Flickr for $35 million and a $3.6 billion deal for GeoCities, an early pioneer in social networking, have been either shut down or neglected within the company. Because of this, Ms. Mayer will face pressure to keep Tumblr’s staff, led by its founder, the 26-year-old David Karp, who dropped out of high school as a 15-year-old programmer. It is unclear whether all of Tumblr’s 175 employees, based in New York City, will move over to Yahoo. At the same time, analysts and investors are likely to question whether buying a site that has struggled to generate revenue makes sense. “This is not an inexpensive acquisition, but they’re willing to pay to get back some of what they’ve lost,” said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners. “They want to be hip.” In her short tenure as chief executive, Ms. Mayer has bought a string of tiny start-ups. Most of those were aimed at buying engineering talent that could help freshen Yahoo’s core products, like mail, finance and sports, as well as build out new mobile services. Ms. Mayer has had ambitions to hunt bigger game, armed with $4.3 billion in cash from selling half of Yahoo’s stake in the Chinese Internet titan Alibaba. She has had conversations with a number of other big-ticket targets, like Foursquare, a mobile app that lets users find nearby restaurants, stores and bars, and Hulu, the video streaming service, according to people with knowledge of those discussions who were not authorized to speak publicly.

162 Tumblr brings something that Ms. Mayer has sought for some time: a fullfledged social network with a loyal following. The start-up claims more than 100 million blogs on its site, reaching 44 million people in the United States and 134 million around the world, according to Quantcast. But in some ways, Yahoo isn’t pursuing users — it already claims 700 million, one of the biggest user bases on the Web — but products and services that would again make it a central destination. Once the biggest seller of display ads in the United States, Yahoo has lost market share to the likes of Google and Facebook. Its share of all digital ad revenue tumbled to 8.4 percent last year, from 15.5 percent in 2009, even as total advertising spending grew, according to eMarketer. Google now claims about 41 percent. The company also missed the shift from the Web to smartphones and tablets. It waited a significantly long time to roll out apps for its most popular services, missing out on chances to harvest users to competitors like Google and Apple. And while Yahoo has managed to grow internationally, it has struggled to make its familiar brand relevant again. Until a recent home page renovation, the company’s main page felt claustrophobic, with ads and content jumbled together. Tumblr’s trove of users and pages could provide fertile new ground for Yahoo’s ad operations, with what industry experts say is a bounty of unsold ad inventory. Mr. Karp of Tumblr had eschewed advertising, favoring a minimalist policy, starting to serve users ads only last May. Mr. Karp, the C.E.O., is expected to get nearly $250 million from the deal. Spark Capital, a venture firm in Boston, has been involved in five investment rounds of Tumblr’s financing and is expected to make tens of millions of dollars from the deal. Yet it is not clear how much Tumblr can help Yahoo reach its goals. The blogging site burned through an estimated $25 million in cash last year, and struggled to raise additional money at an acceptable valuation, according to people briefed on the matter who were not authorized to

163 speak publicly about it. That prompted Mr. Karp to begin deal discussions with a number of companies, including Facebook, Microsoft and Google, though nothing came of those talks. Yahoo and Tumblr have been in serious talks since last week, culminating in the Yahoo board’s vote to approve the deal on Sunday morning. The blogging site has been trying to create new ad efforts like interactive campaigns, rather than using standard clickable ads, with mixed success. It has set a revenue goal of $100 million for this year; the company reported only $13 million for the first quarter and reported $13 million for 2012. Despite its ranking as the 24th most viewed Web site on the Internet, according to Quantcast, Tumblr has yet to translate that into success on mobile devices, something Yahoo needs. Tumblr also bears a fair amount of unsavory content that may unsettle advertisers. Pornography represents a fraction of content on the site, but not a trivial amount for a site with 100 million blogs. The search for profits isn’t unique to Tumblr, as free apps and services struggle to wring money from their users. Instagram famously generated no money when Facebook bought it. Mr. Gillis of BGC said, “Either this management team is going to turn Yahoo around or be the ones who squandered its asset base.”

164 Media Coverage Clip Source

The Washington Post (online)

Date

20-May-2013

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-0520/business/39380365_1_yahoo-acquisition-yahoos-board-should-yahoo

Headline

Yahoo acquires Tumblr in a $1.1 billion deal

165 Text

Yahoo announced Monday that it is buying the blogging site Tumblr with the express promise “not to screw it up.” The company made the announcement after days of speculation that the Web giant would scoop up the fast-growing blogging site. As All Things Digital reported on Sunday, Yahoo said in a release that the deal is worth approximately $1.1 billion, “substantially all of which is payable in cash.” Tumblr, which was started in 2007, has approximately 100 million blogs on its network and complements Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer’s vision of making Yahoo into a more mobile, younger, hipper company. In the company’s press release announcing the acquisition, it seemed clear that Mayer is not interested into changing Tumblr very much, saying that the company will be independently operated.

“On many levels, Tumblr and Yahoo! couldn’t be more different, but, at the same time, they couldn’t be more complementary,” Mayer said in a release. “Both companies are homes for brands - established and emerging. And, fundamentally, Tumblr and Yahoo! are both all about users, design, and finding surprise and inspiration amidst the everyday.” Tumblr’s founder, 26-year-old Dave Karp will remain with the company, saying in a company blog post that he is “elated” that Tumblr is joining Yahoo and said that the deal changes very little about the company.

166 “We’re not turning purple,” Karp said, in reference to Yahoo’s signature logo color. “Our headquarters isn’t moving. Our team isn’t changing. Our roadmap isn’t changing. And our mission – to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve – certainly isn’t changing.”

Karp said that the acquisition will, however, allow Tumblr to “get better faster” and provide it with more resources.

Some Tumblr users had expressed concerns that a Yahoo acquisition

167 would fundamentally change the Tumblr community, in a manner similar to the way some Instagram mourned the news of last year’s Facebook acquisition. Many noted how the company had changed the photo-sharing site Flickr after a 2005 acquisition. As rumors mounted, several people threatened to close their blogs and take them elsewhere if a deal went through. Others said they were worried that Yahoo would tighten Tumblr’s fairly lax content posting policies — the site, in fact, has a reputation for hosting adult content — while others highlighted this as a possible plus for the community. One main objection to the deal is the likely outcome that a Yahoo acquisition means there will be more advertisement on the site. Last month, Tumblr introduced its first mobile ad products — sponsored posts that show up on users’ feeds with an animated dollar sign to let users know it’s an advertisement. With Yahoo’s data and ad experience in tow, Tumblr should be able to target ads more effectively and make more money of its community.

168 Media Coverage Clip Source Date Tonality URL

Reuters (online) 20-May-2013 Neutral http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/20/us-tumblryahooidUSBRE94I0C120130520

Headline Text

Yahoo buying Tumblr for $1.1 billion, vows not to screw it up (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc will buy blogging service Tumblr for $1.1 billion cash, giving the Internet pioneer a much-needed social media platform to reach a younger generation of users and breathe new life into its ailing brand. The deal, announced on Monday, is a bold bet by Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer to revitalize the company by co-opting a Web property with strong visitor traffic but little revenue. The combination of Yahoo and Tumblr creates an online powerhouse with roughly one billion users, which will draw in more advertisers and help Yahoo keep visitors on its properties for longer periods of time, Mayer told Reuters in an interview. "Tumblr in terms of users and traffic is an immediate growth story for us," she said. Analysts say Yahoo appeared to be overpaying for a business that has never posted a profit, makes a fraction of Yahoo's sales, and may not contribute significantly to revenue for years. But the company, rebuffed by the French government when it tried to pay $1 billion for video site Dailymotion earlier this year, had to do something to plug a hole in its social media efforts. Yahoo made clear it was sensitive to concerns that it might damage Tumblr by making it less irreverent or more corporate. "Per the agreement and our promise not to screw it up, Tumblr will be independently operated as a separate business," Yahoo said in a statement. The deal will make Tumblr founder and CEO David Karp, 26, a multimillionaire. Tumblr is one of the Web's most popular hubs of so-called user-generated content, drawing young people who use the platform to post pictures and text. It has more than 100 million blogs in its network, ranging from "White Men Wearing Google Glass" - a collection of photos poking fun at the early adopters of the wearable computing devices - to housingfocused "The Worst Room."

169 Though Yahoo remains one of the Web's most popular destinations, it has seen its revenue shrink in recent years as consumers and advertisers favor rivals such as Google Inc and Facebook Inc. The deal is expected to increase Yahoo's audience by 50 percent. The acquisition, which will use up about a fifth of Yahoo's $5.4 billion in cash and marketable securities, is the largest by far since Mayer took the reins in July with the goal of reversing a long decline in Yahoo's business and Web traffic. RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney called it a "longshot/longterm investment" but one that fits into Mayer's turnaround strategy. "(Yahoo's) fundamentals have been subpar for numerous years, in part because of the company's missing presence in Social and Mobile. Tumblr may help (Yahoo) develop that presence," Mahaney said in a note. RICH PREMIUM While Tumblr is certainly popular - it has tens of millions of monthly unique visitors in the U.S. - analysts questioned what kind of contribution it will make to Yahoo revenue, since advertising on the site is in its nascent stages. Media reports have pegged Tumblr's 2012 revenue at $13 million. The privately held company, based in Manhattan, does not disclose its financial results. Yahoo expects that Tumblr will help boost revenue by 2014, Ken Goldman, Yahoo's chief financial officer, said on a call with analysts. He did not provide specific numbers. "Even if revenue was $100 million, it means Yahoo paid 10 times revenue," said BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis. "Ten times is what you pay to date the belle of the ball. It's on the outer bands of M&A." Yahoo could quickly boost Tumblr's revenue by combining the website with its own sales force, said Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser. But loading Tumblr up with banner ads risks alienating its users and probably wouldn't provide a significant lift to Yahoo's overall revenue, he said. "It's not clear that this deal will be favorable from a return-on-capital perspective," Wieser said. "One billion (dollars) for one company is a big bet." Gillis and Wieser were contacted on Sunday after the deal was reported by the online publication All Things D. Mayer, on the conference call, described the Tumblr deal as an exception and said Yahoo was not necessarily planning lots of similarly sized deals.

170 Yahoo is one of several companies that have coughed up considerable money for buzz-worthy start-ups that hold promise. Facebook bought the popular social media photo site Instagram for $1 billion last year. In 2006, Google paid $1.6 billion for YouTube. Yahoo's track record in acquisitions is patchy. Its $3 billion-plus purchase of Geocities - a free service that hosted personal home pages for consumers and once ranked among the most-trafficked websites - stands among the most glaring of its failed deals. Yahoo shut down the service in 2009. "It's not lost on me that there were some large acquisitions done in Yahoo's history that did not go well," Mayer said in the interview with Reuters. She said Yahoo now has a completely different management team, committed to making the Tumblr deal work. The Tumblr team will remain in New York, Mayer noted, partly because she believes the most successful deals in the Internet industry, such as Google's YouTube acquisition, have thrived by letting the acquired company operate somewhat independently. Shares of Yahoo were up 27 cents, or 1 percent, at $26.78 in afternoon trading. Through Friday's close, the shares had risen 70 percent since Mayer became CEO. IMAGE ISSUES One question Yahoo may have to address is Tumblr's reputation as a home for pornographic blogs. At one point in 2009, about 80 percent of Tumblr's top sites had something to do with adult content. Today that number is closer to 5 percent, according to Quantcast data, but the old image lingers. Mayer, on the conference call, brushed off concerns that Tumblr has content that might not appeal to advertisers, saying the ability to reach more people is "really exciting." She said Yahoo's targeting tools would allow advertisers to zero in on specific demographics and content. One area where Yahoo plans to ramp up advertising: Tumblr's dashboard, the main landing point, akin to a newsfeed. Dealing with that and other issues may fall to Karp, who founded Tumblr in 2007 and will remain CEO. Karp, a self-taught programmer who left high school in favor of home schooling, did not take part in Mayer's conference call. Media reports have suggested his take in the sale of Tumblr would top $200 million. In a 2012 interview with The Guardian, Karp seemed to be less interested in money than in Tumblr's prominence. "There are a lot of rich people in the world. There are very few people

171 who have the privilege of getting to invent things that billions of people use," he said.

172

Media Coverage Clip Source

USA Today (online)

Date

20-May-2013

Tonality

Negative

URL

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/05/20/marissa-mayeryahootumblr-acquisition-google-facebook/2343343/

Headline

Yahooâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Tumblr purchase fraught with challenges

Text

SAN FRANCISCO â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer says her company's $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr could be a game changer. But some question whether Yahoo is game for the hip upstart. "This is incredibly important," Mayer said in a phone interview before a press conference in New York Monday. "Our (mergers and acquisition) was around acquiring talent. This is as much strategic, enhancing growth and getting amazing content." Tumblr, an image-intensive blog platform popular among a younger audience, could be the crown jewel in Mayer's major reclamation project which is competing with Google and Facebook for billions of dollars in advertising revenue. of Yahoo,

173 At the press conference in New York, where Tumblr is based, Yahoo also unfurled a revamped version of photo-sharing site Flickr, featuring big, bolder photos and an Android app. "It feels like people are rooting for Yahoo," Mayer said, pointing to the return of former employees, or "boomerangs" to the company and a bump in online audience figures. "There is more energy on campus than before. Something is happening at Yahoo, and we feel it." But in scooping up an online service that skews to a younger, more mobile audience, Yahoo â&#x20AC;&#x201D; whose demographic is older â&#x20AC;&#x201D; faces several hurdles. Key among them is integrating a vastly different core of users, keeping them happy and monetizing them. Mayer admitted as much in a blog post, where she promised "not to screw it up." The pledge tacitly acknowledges the Internet giant's spotty acquisition record. And this one could be tricky, analysts and investors say. Technology analyst Jonathan Yarmis says in the best of circumstances, acquisitions are hard and that Yahoo has never been in the best of circumstances, "whether it was a dysfunctional board trying to prove it's smarter than the last dysfunctional board, a viper's nest of competing fiefdoms, or a lack of a clear, consistent strategic vision," he said. "Add all these up and it's no surprise they've had a poor track record," Yarmis said. "They've fixed at least some of these things but even still, this reeks of opportunity meets desperation." Then there is Tumblr's adult content, which can include pornography. "Tumblr does not insist on knowing the real identities for users, and some of the Tumblr content is very adult-oriented, both features that advertisers would find repellant," says Brian Proffitt, an adjunct instructor of management in the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business. That also raises the question of how Yahoo plans to sell ads for Tumblr, which has been averse to splashy ads but has started to sell its inventory of content. Yahoo will consider search ads on Tumblr and will talk to bloggers who are interested in selling ads for their blog pages, Mayer said.

174 "Yahoo has a very difficult balancing act ahead: It has to keep Tumblr's current active user base passionately engaged and spending time on the site, while also finding a way to add advertising and other revenue sources," says Zachary Reiss-Davis, an analyst at Forrester Research. "Mayer said ads will be 'very light' and 'really fit users' expectations' â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but Yahoo has to make monetization work without turning off core (Tumblr) users." TUMBLR'S UPSIDE But the Tumblr deal, Yahoo estimates, will boost Yahoo's audience 50% to more than 1 billion monthly visitors (about 700 million for Yahoo and 300 million for Tumblr). Just as important, Yahoo is scrambling to regain the hip factor it once enjoyed and to show investors the deal can increase profits and revenue. "It brings more users, especially of the young, hip demographic that

Yahoo is missing," says IDC analyst Karsten Weide. "It brings more traffic, user engagement and ad dollars. And it is an injection of much needed cool." The deal, expected to close before year-end, won't affect Yahoo's financials in 2013. But it will contribute "materially" to the Internet giant's revenue in 2014, the company said. Yahoo said it will pay "substantially all" cash for Tumblr, using proceeds from last year's sale of about half of its stake in Chinese Internet company Alibaba Holdings. David Karp, the 26-year-old founder of Tumblr who will remain CEO, told USA TODAY that the acquisition plan laid out by Mayer "showed me a path, an opportunity, to do things we want to do but more quickly." "There was no way we were getting to this place without (the plan by Yahoo to maintain Tumblr as an independent company)," Karp said. For such an odd coupling to work, the strategy is simple, explained one fund manager.

175 "Try to take advantage of the synergy but also nurture (Tumblr's) independence," says Ryan Jacob, fund manager of Jacob Internet Fund. "Make sure they continue to grow the way they have and be the parent that can provide resources and operational resources that companies like Tumblr need." "We will run this like eBay runs PayPal and Google handles YouTube," Mayer, a former Google executive who was named Yahoo CEO nearly a year ago, added in the phone interview. Tumblr's traffic and "compelling content" drove Yahoo to approach Karp, Mayer said. The users of Tumblr, which claims 50 billion blog posts a month, are younger and more tech-savvy than most of Yahoo's users, making it attractive to advertisers. Since joining Yahoo in July, Mayer has been scooping up start-ups, mainly to acquire engineering talent. But the Tumblr acquisition is the largest deal for Yahoo in a decade. Its other major deals include buying GeoCities in 1999 for more than $4 billion and a $1.63 billion deal to acquire search advertising firm Overture in 2003. The deal most critics site as emblematic of Yahoo's acquisitions missteps

176 is the purchase of Flickr in 2005, when it was one of the most popular sites for professional and amateur photographers. Yahoo steered resources to other divisions and failed to enhance Flickr's social and mobile features that were needed to compete with Facebook and Instagram. Flickr traffic plummeted. Under Mayer, Flickr users have begun to notice improvements. Entrepreneur Sean Bonner, who launched #dearmarissamayer, a Twitter campaign to make Flickr "awesome again" told Wired magazine in April that Yahoo has responded to users' pleas. "Flickr was awesome, we let it languish, and now we want it to be awesome again," Mayer said at the New York press conference. Mayer seems to be making a preemptive strike against critics of past deals, who have charged that Yahoo has paid up for start-ups that over time added little to the company's revenue and which, in some cases, diluted the brand and the customer base of the acquired company. Yahoo envisions incorporating Tumblr's unique posts and other interesting content to Yahoo's flowing newsfeed. "We think this increases the core Yahoo audience and, just as important, grows search," Mayer said in the interview. Yahoo may integrate its search engine inside Tumblr, allowing Tumblr's content to appear on the results page on Tumblr and general web queries. In targeting young consumers, top global brand companies â&#x20AC;&#x201D; including all 10 of the largest movie studios â&#x20AC;&#x201D; use Tumblr to promote their products, Mayer said in an earlier conference call Monday. Tumblr is also ahead of Yahoo in chasing after customers who use smartphones to access sites, Mayer said. More than half of Tumblr's users are using the mobile app and conduct an average of seven sessions per day, Mayer said. The Yahoo brand will not be visible on Tumblr for now and the "backend" integration of some functions will be invisible to Tumblr users, Mayer said in Monday's conference call. Yahoo shares edged up 0.64% Tuesday to $26.6

177 Media Coverage Clip Source Date Tonality URL

Wall Street Journal (online) 20-May-2013 Positive http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324102604578495071529930876.html

Headline Yahoo’s Tumblr Deal Brings Challenges, Opportunities What do you say when your six-year-old company that has no profit and barely any Text revenue gets bought for more than $1 billion in cash? Tumblr CEO David Karp exulted with an expletive. That signoff to Mr. Karp's post announcing the deal on Tumblr's company blog punctuates some of the cultural challenges that Yahoo Inc., an established Internet company, will face as it tries to make the acquisition pay off. In an interview Monday, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said buying Tumblr instantly boosts Yahoo's user base by 50% to one billion, and Web traffic by 20%, "which is really heartening." "Growth in the consumer tech industry always starts with traffic," she said. Ms. Mayer has said repeatedly that increasing Yahoo's "impressions," or the number of Web page views and other interactions on Yahoo's sites, would be the only way to boost revenue. That is a mantra of most Web company CEOs, including Ms. Mayer's former top boss at Google Inc., Larry Page. The deal has other benefits for Yahoo. Much of the content that people post on Tumblr — from fashion and art to food and travel—doesn't overlap with what is on Yahoo, which is strong in categories like sports, finance and news. Ms. Mayer said the companies will find ways to surface Tumblr's unique content on Yahoo's sites. There also isn't much of an overlap between Yahoo's "older" base of visitors and those of Tumblr, who are the "youngest users of any site of this scale," Ms. Mayer said. Mr. Karp, who will continue to run the blogging service, tried to allay concerns that the deal would hurt the company. "We're not turning purple," he wrote in a blog post, referring to Yahoo's corporate colors. "Our headquarters isn't moving. Our team isn't changing. Our road map isn't changing. And our mission—to empower creators to make their best work and get it in

178

front of the audience they deserve—certainly isn't changing. So what's new? Simply, Tumblr gets better faster." Yahoo promised Tumblr not to "screw it up," in the company's announcement of the deal Monday. Yahoo Chief Financial Officer Ken Goldman said Monday that the deal was "about topline growth," or revenue. As to how Yahoo arrived at the $1.1 billion valuation of a site that generated $13 million in advertising last year, Mr. Goldman said it used "traditional financial metrics like…cash flows" and looked at similar transactions in the past—namely, Facebook Inc.'s 2011 acquisition of Instagram for around $1 billion and Google's 2006 acquisition of YouTube for $1.65 billion. In both cases, the acquirers bought companies with little to no revenue. Yahoo also looked at "comparable companies in terms of metrics related to monthly users," Mr. Goldman said in an interview. Ms. Mayer said the site has 300 million active monthly users. Seen that way, Yahoo is paying around $3 per user, while Facebook paid around $30 per Instagram user. Yahoo will pick up around 90 software engineers from Tumblr. Web companies often pay $1 million per engineer during a transaction. Yahoo is paying a premium for the company. When Tumblr last raised money, in late 2011, the $85 million venture-capital investment it received valued the company at $800 million. "You only do an acquisition of this size and scale if you find an exceptional company, and Tumblr is that," Ms. Mayer said. In an interview Monday, Mr. Karp said Tumblr and Yahoo began talking late last year. "We were not thinking of selling the company," he said, but rather looked at Yahoo as a potential partner in building up the site's nascent advertising initiatives. Tumblr didn't begin placing ads on its service until last year, focusing instead on

179

180

growing its user base while placing a lower priority on making money. Mr. Karp said 80% of the activity on Tumblr is on Web pages that can have advertising, though the company has been careful to allow only ads that fit with the aesthetic and format of the site. That means Yahoo won't just slap on graphical or video ads willy-nilly, Mr. Karp and Ms. Mayer said Monday. But Yahoo will unleash its 2,500-strong sales force to help sell ads on Tumblr, Ms. Mayer said. Tumblr has only 25 sales people. Ms. Mayer also said there also are opportunities for Yahoo to introduce ads when people use Tumblr's search function to look for certain content on the site. "We talked to lots of brands trying to work with Tumblr, and they're so eager to being in front of these users," Ms. Mayer said. Some Tumblr users will take time to migrate to Yahoo's core websites and might never join the fold of its parent, Ms. Mayer said. At the same time, the blogging service offers several advantages Yahoo executives said could benefit Yahoo, like a successful track record snagging users on mobile devices. "Part of our strategy here is to let Tumblr be Tumblr," Ms. Mayer said. The deal is a big win for Mr. Karp, who remains a large shareholder, and the site's early venture investors, which include Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital and Sequoia Capital. Ms. Mayer praised Mr. Karp for his enthusiasm for entertaining and compelling ads on other media, like TV, that can be "every bit as good as the content" when pitching products like cars. "Where are the ads that are like that, where are the ads that are aspirational?" she asked. "We want that kind of richness in the online atmosphere." The acquisition is a big bet for Yahoo, given Tumblr's financial performance so far. But Yahoo needs the growth.

181

Its annual revenue has been stuck for years around $5 billion, and the company's big presence on personal computers hasn't translated well to mobile devices, where it lacks the advantage of Apple Inc.'s coveted hardware or Google's ubiquitous smartphone operating software, Android. New York-based Tumblr, founded in 2007, has 175 employees, and more than 117 million unique visitors per month world-wide, according to comScore Inc. The site is among a number of fast-growing startups, including online scrapbook Pinterest and news aggregation site Reddit. Tumblr built that following by making it easy for people to create blogs and post writings, photos and videos. Tumblr users can follow other people's updates the way Facebook users follow friendsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and easily share their work. With these features, Tumblr lowered the bar for online publishing and effectively merged blogging with social media.

182 Media Coverage Clip Source

The New Yorker (online)

Date

20-May-2013

Tonality

Positive

URL

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/05/yahootumblracquisition-tumble-into-the-unknown.html

Headline

What Yahoo Bought With A Billion Dollars: Hope

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“A tumblelog is a quick and dirty stream of consciousness, a bit like a remaindered links style linklog but with more than just links,” blogging pioneer Jason Kottke wrote in October, 2005. (Kottke and his wife, Meg Hourihan, another pioneer, were profiled in this magazine in 2000 for their early blogging efforts.) “They remind me of an older style of blogging, back when people did sites by hand,” before blogging software like Movable Type turned blog entries “into short magazine articles,” he added. (This was in part because, at the time, tumblelogs, like the exemplary “Projectionist” and “Anarchaia,” which might have been the first tumblelog, had to be coded by hand.) Also, notably, in a tumblelog there are “different ways of displaying various types of content… remaindered links, regular posts, book reviews, and movie reviews are all displayed differently.” The core idea, Anil Dash explains, is “that people would want to easily post the cool stuff they were finding on other sites and publishing in other media,” which is not what blogging software at the time was designed to do. Sixteen months later, in February, 2007, a nineteen-year-old high-school dropout named David Karp announced a new service designed exclusively for tumblelogging. It was called Tumblr. On Tumblr, as with Twitter and Pinterest and other social networks, users can follow other users. But what makes Tumblr unique as a blogging platform—aside from Karp’s ascetic product sensibilities—is the

184 â&#x20AC;&#x153;reblogâ&#x20AC;? function, which allows users to repost entries from other users in their entirety, adding their own comments at the bottom. (It is the only officially supported way to comment on another userâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Tumblr entries.) Unlike previous forms of blogging, the service has virality built into its

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architecture.

Six years later, Tumblr has grown to fifty billion posts across a hundred and eight million tumblelogs, with nearly two hundred million unique visitors in the last month according to Quantcast (though Tumblr claims three hundred million). Many of them are in the highly coveted demographics of teen-agers and adults eighteen to thirty-four. This is why Yahoo, the aging, deteriorated Internet giant, has officially announced that it is buying Tumblr for roughly $1.1 billion, mostly in cash. The moribund company desperately needs more life and vibrancy; it sees those things in Tumblr’s numbers and, maybe most dramatically, in its youth. Though one of a spree of acquisitions for Yahoo since C.E.O./savior Marissa Mayer’s arrival, it is the largest and most important for the company by an order of magnitude, and it surpasses the value of the last major social-networking deal, in which Facebook bought Instagram for a billion dollars. The second sentence of the first post on Mayer’s amateurish Tumblr (it uses a basic, dated theme) announcing the acquisition reads, “We promise not to screw it up.” This might sound like a strange way to introduce an acquisition. But the core fear of the users of any product from any company in any industry when it gets acquired is that the conqueror will ruin it. That fear is especially pronounced in the technology industry, where companies are so often founded explicitly for the purpose of being

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gobbled up and dissolved in the gullet of a gargantuan corporation, and its users are simply bait. And it is more profound still when it comes to Yahoo, which has an especially egregious track record of bespoiling the companies it entices into its purple esophagus (and wildly overpaying for many of them, as with its multi-billion-dollar purchases of the nowshuttered GeoCities and Broadcast.com). Most notably, in 2005, Yahoo bought Flickr, the deeply beloved and popular photo-sharing service, and “murdered it,” letting it slide toward irrelevancy as photo start-ups like Instagram emerged. (Mayer is currently trying to undo the last several years of neglect; there is in fact a Flickr-related announcement from Yahoo happening today.) So, “we promise not to screw it up,” which so

187 far entails operating Tumblr independently and leaving Karp in place as Tumblr’s C.E.O. His own promises, in turn—“we’re not turning purple” and “our roadmap isn’t changing”—are weighty words. Tumblr users, predictably, are outraged. Given Karp’s reputation as an obsessive, finicky aesthete, the choice of Yahoo, a lumbering behemoth of the Old Internet, for Tumblr’s new home might seem odd. But pragmatism can be a powerful motivating force. For all of Tumblr’s massive numbers related to users and content, its stats are less impressive when it comes to actual dollars. After acquiescing to its need to enter the advertising business in May, 2012—it previously made money by selling premium layouts for users’ tumblelogs—Tumblr generated just thirteen million dollars in revenue for all of 2012. (And there are allegations its revenues were even lower than stated. More problematically, there was noise that its prospects for this year are less-than-stellar based on its revenue so far, despite Tumblr’s estimates of a hundred million dollars in revenue.) Additionally, Karp, noted for his product vision far more than his attention to business, was reportedly looking for someone to be his “Sheryl Sandberg,” a reference to the Facebook C.O.O. widely credited with turning Facebook into a real business, with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue per quarter. Meanwhile, Tumblr has seen a string of high-level executives flee in the last year, including its vice president of engineering, which the New York Observer’s sources personally attribute to Karp. There had been recent rumors that Karp was looking for more funding, given Tumblr’s expenses, and that it could not receive the valuation it wanted, around $1.5 billion. (It last raised eighty-five million dollars, valuing the company at eight hundred million dollars, in 2011.) Kara Swisher, who first reported the acquisition, added later that, despite earlier rumors, there “were no other competing offers” for Tumblr. It’s too early to say whether Yahoo will screw up Tumblr—by making it ugly, by introducing terrible advertising, by obscuring its wealth of adult content, or by simply casting a pall over it so great that the site’s fickle

188 younger users abandon it. It’s also too early to say whether Yahoo screwed up by buying Tumblr, whose explosive growth has slowed of late, according to Quantcast numbers. Or, more hopefully, maybe Yahoo made its first wildly successful acquisition and the two companies will grow together; Instagram, for example, has in many ways (though not all) been a model acquisition, with the majority of its users having signed up after its purchase by Facebook. The outcome may depend almost entirely on how happy Yahoo makes Karp. (Tumblr’s co-founder, Marco Arment, writes that “Tumblr is David, and David is Tumblr.”) Regardless, Yahoo’s acquisition further concentrates social networking in the hands of a few companies, leaving Twitter and Pinterest behind as the only big, independent social networks of their ilk aside from Facebook. Karp will personally net nearly two hundred and fifty million dollars from the deal, nearly as many dollars as Tumblr has users. It’s no wonder he ended his note announcing the acquisition with “Fuck yeah, David,” even if the users who just made him extremely rich don’t exactly feel that way.

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ABC News (online) 20-May-2013 Negative http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/Entertainment/internetacquisitions-yahoolearn-dealing-tumblr/story?id=19217223

Headline Will Yahoo! Do To Tmblr What It Did To Flickr & GeoCities? Text Yahoo! is buying Tumblr it seems, and

there's nothing we can do Media compan about it. acquisition of large platforms with millions of users as an opportunity to grab a wider audience ies (like Yahoo!, NewsCorp., themselves. Google) often look at the

the company providing said audience. Rarely do too young to take into account (Google buying YouTube, Facebook they give buying Instagram), but most of the older internet acquisitions have followed this path and essentially much back found the situation wanting. to Sure, the most recent Often, the problem is if these big companies buyouts are know what to do with the product, which means they do one of two things. They let the product lang until it's on the verge of death and then they shut it down. Or, it's sold for a lot less than a company pai it. The good news? Yahoo! can learn from these mistakes and give Tumblr a fighting chance.

can't monetize, they don't

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Wired Magazine (online) 20-May-2013 Negative http://www.wired.com/business/2013/05/yahoo-acquisition-snafus/

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Yahoo’s Past Buys Tell a Tale of Mediocrity and Failure Yahoo’s narrative arc as a company can be defined by its acquisitions,

191 which taken together also serve as one take on the history of the web itself. In the Yahoo version of that history, founders and backers of overvalued companies enjoy huge exits while the buyer tends to learn too late that its exuberance was irrational. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer will soon find out whether her company’s $1.1 billion purchase of Tumblr becomes the latest chapter in a saga littered with mediocrity and failure. Broadcast.com (1999)—In one of the frothiest moments of the first dotcom bubble, Yahoo bought a financially unsuccessful internet radio startup for a reported $5.7 billion in stock and made Mark Cuban very rich. The service was rebranded Launchcast and has cycled through multiple corporate partners as better ideas – from the first Napster to Spotify – have made the very idea of “broadcasting” on the internet obsolete. Geocities (1999)—When the first great ’90s nostalgia movie hits, we’ll undoubtedly meet the protagonist as he rocks out to Pearl Jam while creating some sweet tiled backgrounds and tablebased layouts on his GeoCities page. It’s hard to fault Yahoo for swapping $3.6 billion in stock for what at the time was one of the web’s most trafficked sites. It’s easier to blame the company for allowing GeoCities to sputter in dot-com limbo before shuttering the U.S. version a decade later. Overture Services (2003)—Yahoo’s purchase of Overture for more than $1.6 billion stands as its largest acquisition not directly aimed at consumers. The Google AdWords competitor was quickly rebranded as a Yahoo property and continues to serve up a high volume of internet advertising. But Yahoo has struggled to get those ads to generate as much revenue per ad as Google’s, and has faced the wrath of advertisers over changes to the service. Right Media (2007)—To bulk up in its battle against Google, Yahoo spent $680 million to complete its acquisition of ad auction service Right Media. The purchase helped fill out Yahoo’s Panama ad platform but hasn’t helped Yahoo close the gap in the company’s perpetual race to catch up to its dominant competitor. Kelkoo (2004)—Yahoo bought European price-comparison site Kelkoo in 2004 for nearly $600 million. In 2008, Yahoo reportedly unloaded the sputtering service for about one-quarter of what it paid. Hotjobs.com (2002)—Yahoo battled online job search rival Monster Worldwide to acquire HotJobs for $436 million. Less than a decade later,

192 Monster took HotJobs off Yahoo’s fumbling hands for $225 million. eGroups (2000)—In one of the few bright spots in Yahoo’s history of acquisitions, its $432 million purchase of eGroups helped build the foundation of the incredibly popular Yahoo Groups. But popularity has never been Yahoo’s main problem. Converting that popularity into profit is where the company has always foundered, and its priority if the Tumblr acquisition is to avoid a GeoCities repeat.

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CNBC (online) 21-May-2013 Neutral http://www.cnbc.com/id/100754205

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Tumblr Will Operate Independently: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer told CNBC on Tuesday that the $1.1 billion deal for Tumblr is "part of enhancing our growth story" and the effects will start to be felt in 2014. "There is a lot of new energy in the core of Yahoo," she said. "I think that's really exciting." "We really wanted to be able to move faster as a company. I think you can see that we've achieved a lot more velocity and I think that's what's being felt right now," she said on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street.” To value the deal, Mayer said that the traditional valuation analysis was done and "all of those methodologies supported this valuation." "Tumblr has a really good thing going. I'm cognizant of the fact that we don't want to mess that up," Mayer added. She said Tumblr, founded by 26-year-old high school dropout David Karp, will operate independently.

"It's not going to change. There are certainly going to be some things behind the scenes—maybe be it search or discovery or pulling some of Tumblr's content into Yahoo's core properties—but in terms of the way that Tumblr works it's still going to be aligned with David's vision and road map," Mayer said. "Especially when you have a hypergrowth company, you want them to operate independently so they can run as fast as they can. That's really how you deliver value from the acquisition to the core company," she added.

Mayer said that she is looking at the acquisition as a partnership and said the most exciting opportunities are in idea exchange and collaboration

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between the companies. "There is so much that we can do together that it just makes sense to merge."

195 The acquisition is an attempt to make Yahoo more relevant to a younger audience through the social web. But Mayer dismissed the idea that Yahoo bought it to "buy some cool." She said the blogging site, which has 300 million unique monthly users and 109 blogs, will be allowed to develop based on Karp's vision. "We bought a growth opportunity. We've been very clear that our goal is to grow, to grow with the market and eventually to grow faster than the market. Tumblr is hypergrowth. The massiveness of that user base is amazing, so growing our audience by 50 percent to more than 1 billion users per month that is huge," she said. Karp said creating Tumblr was a "mission" to serve the online creative community. "This is an incredible opportunity to serve that mission for a long time. This is a long-term thing for me," he said. "I have no idea what Marissa's expectations are, but this is still my baby and where I'm giving all of my heart and attention," he added. Mayer said that she's "not sure" if another acquisition is on the immediate horizon, "I don't like to say never, but I think it takes a moment to integrate this well." On the competition, Mayer said that she tried Google Glass and called it an "interesting product" and said that she supports wearable technology in general. "I like the notion of taking your context and getting information in real time. Glass takes us one step closer to getting that context." Comparisons have been made between Tumblr and Googleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2006 acquisition of YouTube. At the time, YouTube had virtually no revenue but is now one of the company's most valuable brands. Like YouTube, Tumblr offers users a platform to create original content and share with others. However, Tumblr content is primarily text,

196 animations and images, which generally draw lower premiums from advertisers compared to video. Tumblr allows sharing of videos, but to a lesser extent than video-focused YouTube. Similar comparisons have also been made to Yahoo's 1999 acquisition of GeoCities, which was shuttered in 2009. Yahoo insiders dismissed the comparison to GeoCities and said that management believes Tumblr is one of the rare transformative sites on the Internet, according to The New York Times. In the first trading session since the announcement, Yahoo shares closed up 0.23 percent on Monday. It continued trading higher on Tuesday.

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Huffington Post (online) 21-May-2013 Negative http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/21/yahootumblrteens_n_3309963.html

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Yahoo’s Got Tumblr’s Teens – But For How Long? In paying $1.1 billion for Tumblr, Yahoo has just gotten the attention of the 300 million, predominantly young people who have made the site one of the most engaged communities on the web. But hanging on to that community may be difficult, say analysts, while focusing on an emerging truth of the web: Though young people beckon as the most prized of users, they can also be markedly fickle. Yahoo just paid a bundle to reach people who have proven easily distracted and inclined to move on. It's a dilemma with which many social media sites are grappling, as they face off against a seemingly endless proliferation of new social networks all vying to be the favorite among millennials. “Teens certainly look to en vogue websites, and in some cases they may be here today or gone tomorrow,” said Clark Fredrickson, a spokesman for eMarketer, a digital media market research firm. “Older generations have less free time, so it takes more time for their habits to change. The younger generation can spend hours a day on one site, get bored of it and switch to something else the next day.” In a call with investors on Monday morning, Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer explained that Yahoo and Tumblr’s differing demographics would give the company’s advertisers access to a valuable new audience. More than 65 percent of Tumblr’s users are under 35, Tumblr chief executive David Karp told The Huffington Post at a Yahoo press conference Monday evening. Yahoo’s users, by contrast, “tend to be slightly older,” said Mayer. Yet it remains to be seen how loyal those teens and 20-somethings are to the suite of sites they have embraced online -- from Tumblr and Twitter to Facebook and YouTube.

198 Like other social networking sites, Yahoo and Tumblr will be challenged to stay relevant to millennials, a population with an unquenchable

199 appetite for the next new thing, an instinctive aversion to anything deemed uncool or corporate and the technical know-how to switch services easily. After all, teens and 20-somethings regularly outgrow their offline hangouts, gradually moving from their parents’ basements to bars and other spots. Who’s to say the same won’t happen online? Karp maintained that Tumblr can hold onto its younger users because of its focus on content, rather than relationships. Mayer, for her part, referred to Tumblr not as a “social network” but as a “media network” during her call with investors Monday. “I don’t think this has anything to do with, ‘We’re the social network of the moment.’ I think Tumblr is decidedly not social. It’s not about the people in your life, it’s not about relationships -- though it can grow into that -- but really, it’s about the stuff that you love,” Karp told The Huffington Post. “People come to Tumblr to find the stuff that they love, and that’s built on this incredibly creative community that we do everything to support.” Tumblr helps people to create and distribute content, said Karp, who argued these activities are particularly popular among younger audiences. “The thing about supporting creativity is that young people have much more boundless creativity,” Karp continued. “People start to give up when they get older. Creativity is a very human thing, but I think it’s something we all experience when we’re young.” Yet some experts speculate that younger demographics may be more fickle than their parents or older peers. Not only do they have an everexpanding selection of sites and services from which to choose, but these younger users are “more ambitious in what they explore,” noted Brian Solis, an analyst with Altimeter Group. Just a few years ago, another mass media company paid top dollar for an up-and-coming social network that, like Tumblr, offered what reporters at the time deemed “a unique 'in' with the preteen, teen, and young-adult population” and that enjoyed “surging popularity with young audiences” - Myspace. Yet in the eight years since News Corporation’s 2005 acquisition of Myspace, the percentage of teens on the social media site has dropped

200 dramatically. In 2006, 85 percent of teens who had social media accounts said their Myspace profile was the one they used most often, according to

201 the Pew Research Center. By 2011, only a quarter of teens with social media accounts even had a Myspace profile. Of course, Myspace’s dwindling popularity isn’t the only evidence that young users are inherently capricious in their online habits. Myspace's own strategic missteps -- and Facebook’s concurrent successes -- also help to account for the mass exodus. Yet Myspace’s foibles highlight how little tolerance millennials have for sites that go astray and the speed with which a flourishing site can find itself abandoned. Though data are scant on millennials’ evolving usage of specific social media sites, a 2013 survey by investment bank Piper Jaffray suggests younger users have lately been turning away from sites like Facebook and YouTube that were once their preferred destinations. The proportion of teens that named Facebook the “most important social media site” fell 10 percent in the past year to just over 20 percent, according to Piper Jaffray. Tumblr’s importance also dropped slightly: Nearly 10 percent of teens identified Tumblr as the most important social media site in the spring of 2012, while just 5 percent said the same this year. With so many alternatives from which young users can choose, social networking sites needn’t do anything besides mature to see their popularity plummet. “If a site gets stale, millennials start to talk about banishing the network,” said Solis. “If a site starts to feel uncool, it is uncool. It has as much to do with the technology as the culture.” Tumblr faces the real risk of becoming uncool by virtue of its association with Yahoo, noted Solis, and already some teens are threatening to leave the site. “Karp has to make a strategic effort every day to protect Tumblr’s culture and evolve its culture so millennials feel like it evolves with them,” said Solis. Karp already seems to be burnishing his anti-establishment street cred. The 26-year-old entrepreneur skipped Yahoo’s investor call on Monday morning to meet with Tumblr’s team, and signed off a blog post announcing Tumblr’s acquisition with a flippant, four-letter salutation: “f*** yeah.”

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Inc. Magazine (online) 18-Jun-2013 Negative http://www.inc.com/eric-markowitz/making-sense-of-yahoospuzzlingacquisition-strategy.html

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Making Sense of Yahooâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Puzzling Acquisition Strategy

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With Marissa Mayer at the helm, Yahoo is on an acquisition tear. One month after the company's $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr, AllThingsD reported yesterday that Yahoo is in talks to purchase Xobni, an address book app, for $30 million to $40 million. And today, news surfaced that the company is also about to acquire Qwiki, a popular video sharing app, for close to $50 million. If the two deals go through, Yahoo will have publicly acquired 14 companies in 2013; by comparison, last year it bought only two companies, and, in 2011, three. No Surprise, But What's the Strategy? When Marissa Mayer took over as Yahoo's CEO in late 2012, one of her first stated missions was to sniff out potential acquisitions in order to turn Yahoo back into a growth company. And with $1.2 billion in cash on hand --even after the Tumblr acquisition--she has room for several more big purchases before 2014. "We're looking for smaller-scale acquisitions that align well overall with our businesses," Mayer said on a shareholder conference call in October 2012. Ken Goldman, the company's CFO, chimed in saying, "Our primary objective as a new management team is to leverage our assets, competitive strengths, and available resources to transition this company from financial stability to a growth business." What's puzzling to me, though, is the strategy behind these acquisitions on a whole. In just six months, Mayer the 14 deals have been spread over a wide variety of areas. You have to wonder if Yahoo is just shooting from the

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hip at this point, hoping that at least one brings in new revenue. Even though Yahoo is beating Wall Street profit estimates, its core advertising business is suffering, and it's clear that Mayer is looking for some way to make money. That said, two loose themes emerge from Mayer's deal-making moves, but I'm skeptical about both. Building Out Mobile Yahoo has an impressive 300 million mobile users, but that's about half Facebook's mobile user base. Mayer has been vocal about aggressively trying to capture a larger mobile audience. Last month, at the Wired Business Conference, Mayer said that the biggest goal right now is to have "Yahoo persistent on every smartphone, tablet, and PC for every Internet user.â&#x20AC;? Of the acquisitions Yahoo has made so far this year, several were focused on expanding mobile capabilities, including Summly, a news app; Loki Studios, a gaming start-up; aLike, a recommendation app; and Ghostbird software, a photo app. Anecdotally, it seems Mayer is ready to attract the best mobile talent, too. Reports The Post: "Employees chosen to work on the all-important mobile mission are given the coolest and latest laptops, the best, most recently redecorated offices and prompt access to Mayer's office, according to interviews with several Yahoo insiders." But mobile expansion will be tough for Yahoo, even with a slew of upstarts and new thinkers in the space. Unlike its competitors like Facebook and Google, Yahoo never made the leap into hardware--which will make Mayer's hope to be on every device all the more difficult. Making Yahoo More Social Clearly Mayer's other big bet is to revitalize Yahoo by making it more

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social. Some were skeptical about Mayer's $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr--which only had about $13 million of revenue in 2012--but it's apparent Mayer sees the company as a vehicle to tap into one of the most active social platforms on the Web, along with a somewhat different advertising model. As Adam Rifkin writes: "In some ways, Tumblr is actually Facebook 2.0! As Facebook has become a real-life social network infested with parents, co-workers, exfriends, and people you barely know, Tumblr has become the place where young people express themselves and their actual interests with their actual friends." But Yahoo's foray into social will be fraught with challenges. Tumblr's core demographic is the 18-to-24-year-old bracket, a notoriously fickle cohort. Yahoo's other "social" purchases--like its January 2013 acquisition of Snip.it, which lets users collect articles--don't have much to do with Tumblr. It's too early to see if Mayer's acquisition strategy will pay off, and Mayer knows it'll take time to see if the deals deliver material results to the core business. As she said on an April 2013 shareholder call: "Overall, I have been very pleased with how well our talent acquisitions have integrated into the company. You'll see many of the contributions come to life in our product experiences over the next few months. So stay tuned."

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Bloomberg Businessweek (online) 5-Jul-2013 Negative http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/17/yahootumblr_n_3293349.html

Headline Searching for Strategy in Yahoo!â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Shopping Spree

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Yahoo! Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer has been snapping up companies so quickly that it’s almost hard to keep track of them all: In just the past week, deals have been announced for three companies— Qwiki, something called BigNoggin, and Xobni—with a total cost estimated at more than $100 million. Xobni, an e-mail inbox-management service that has been around since 2006, was Mayer’s most recent purchase, with an estimated price tag somewhere between $30 million and more than $60 million. Behind the shopping spree, is there a strategy tying these acquisitions together? One obvious answer is mobile, something Mayer said early on would be a major focus as the company tries to revitalize its faded business: Of the 17 acquisitions Yahoo has announced since she took over the chief executive job, many have something to do with mobile. Qwiki, for example—which the company bought for an estimated $50 million earlier this week—is a service that allows users to create videos on their phones. Other purchases, however—such as the $1 billion acquisition of Tumblr, and even the acquisition of Xobni itself—aren’t so obviously about mobile. The Tumblr deal seemed designed, at least in part, to restore some luster to Yahoo’s reputation as a cool Web company and to try to generate more traffic for its advertising properties. Xobni is clearly meant to help Yahoo’s mail product improve. Yet the company has been languishing on the sidelines of the tech sector for

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some time now (as has Qwiki). To some extent, that deal seems to be about trying to catch up withMicrosoft and Google on features. That’s one of the problems with many Yahoo acquisitions: They seem to be attempts by Mayer to get Yahoo caught up to other major players—a strategy that rarely comes with a big payoff. Is the addition of Xobni going to cause dramatically large numbers of people to switch to Yahoo Mail, or to remain with Yahoo Mail instead of switching to Google or some other service? At worst, this kind of approach could easily create a sort of “FrankenYahoo”, with disparate parts that fit together but don’t work very well. Adding services such as Qwiki could generate heat and light for Yahoo’s mobile efforts. So could such acquisitions as news-summarization app Summly, for which Yahoo paid an estimated $30 million, despite an utter lack of revenue, let alone profits. At the same time, the frenzy of deals seems to be more like a scattershot “buy anything that says mobile in its feature set” approach than one guided by an overall vision of what Yahoo wants to become on phones and tablets. As Om Malik pointed out recently, Mayer has the luxury of a deep pocketbook with which to finance the spending spree: Alibaba, the Chinese portal in which Yahoo holds a 23 percent stake, has continued to increase in value and might be worth as much as $100 billion; together with hopes for improved performance under Mayer, this has helped Yahoo’s stock price improve over the past six months. The acquisition binge may well continue. Yahoo has suggested that many of its acquisitions have been about acquihiring—adding smart developers and entrepreneurs to its staff, presumably to inject fresh blood into the company and its businesses.

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However, Om has also argued in the past that Mayer and her acquisitions probably canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t change Yahooâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s core DNA, a cultural miasma that has

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stymied the efforts of several preceding CEOs and made the company a synonym for snatching failure from the jaws of victory. Can the former Googler stitch the startups she has acquired into something approaching a winning strategy? That remains a rather large question mark.

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CNN Money (online) 15-Jul-2013 Negative http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/15/technology/innovation/yahoomarissamayer-strategy/index.html

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How one year of Marissa Mayer has changed Yahoo Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer likes to shop. During Mayer's one-year tenure -- her start date was a year ago Wednesday -- Yahoo has bought an incredible 16 startups. And she didn't even start the buying spree until she'd been CEO for three months. Since then Yahoo's acquisitions have been made at a breakneck pace, with the company sometimes announcing two purchases in a single day, or six over the course of a month. "It is just astounding how truly active Yahoo has been on the M&A front," said S&P Capital equity analyst Scott Kessler. "They're mostly buying very small companies, but still -- I don't know that any other company has matched this pace of buying." Mayer was likely inspired by her former employer Google, which often buys small companies in order to gain talented staffers. Mayer's spin on that strategy is a key part of her plan to turn around the struggling Yahoo, and the trail of purchases offers a glimpse at how she views the company's future. Mobile first. As smartphones and tablets continue to fly off store shelves, Mayer has made it clear she's laser-focused on mobile. Almost all of the 16 startups Mayer has bought were centered on mobile content, apps and services.

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"[Mayer] is pulling in people who are excited about mobile, people who want to build a winning culture," said JMP Securities analyst Ron Josey. "Yahoo needs that badly. That cannot be understated, given that [Mayer's] main strategy is to make Yahoo a company that builds products people are excited to use every day." But Yahoo has been mainly interested in those companies for their engineering talent, also known as the "acqui-hire" method. Yahoo shut down all but three of the 16 companies it purchased in the past year, and many of the startups' teams joined the company's mobile staff. (Only blogging platform Tumblr, gaming infrastructure creator PlayerScale and video app Qwiki have survived.) Focus on key growth areas. All of Yahoo's acquisitions under Mayer have fallen into one of four buckets: core business (content, apps and search), social, gaming, and video (chat and conference calling). "If you think about the direction of the Web, these are all huge areas," said Kessler, the S&P Capital analyst. "This isn't about just acquiring staffers -this is about using these companies' technology to enhance and improve what Yahoo already has." The most obvious example: After Mayer brokered a deal with 15-yearold founder Nick' D'Aloisio to acquire his news aggregation app Summly, Yahoo relaunched its flagship mobile app to include Summly summaries. "Marissa Mayer is well connected in [Silicon] Valley, and she knows what's buzzy and what's working," said JMP analyst Josey. "She can pull from companies doing smart things in growing areas of the Web, and try to make Yahoo more like them." Make Yahoo cool again.

213 Mayer's buying strategy mirrors her overall revamp of Yahoo during the past year. She has successfully overhauled the corporate culture, which has been enough to lure back some former Yahoos: During the company's firstquarter earnings call, Mayer proudly announced that 14% of all hires during the quarter were "boomerangs," or people who had worked at the company previously. To entice users, Mayer relaunched Yahoo mobile apps, totally redesigned the Flickr photo service and released a cleaner search results page. Investors have been pleased, too: Shareholders cheered when Mayer sold back a significant portion of its stake in Chinese company Alibaba, which in turn helped fuel Yahoo's large share buyback program. "All of these, including the [startup acquisitions], are pieces of Mayer's overall plan to get employees, users and shareholders excited about Yahoo," Josey said. "It's a big challenge, and you need multiple approaches to really turn a company around." Yet some analysts aren't convinced that a turnaround is possible. "I'm skeptical about the company's ability to reinvent itself the way people expect," Kessler said. "That's not a knock on Marissa Mayer as much as it's an acknowledgment that these types of undertakings are extremely difficult. It's hard to go from a dying company to a market leader."

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Mashable (online) 16-Jul-2013 Neutral http://mashable.com/2013/07/15/marissa-mayer-yahoo-first-year/

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Marissa Mayer’s First Year at Yahoo: Don’t Call It a Comeback

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Savior. Visionary. A new hope. These were just some of the glowing words used by the press to describe Marissa Mayer when she was hired as Yahoo's CEO one year ago. That sense of optimism appeared inside the company as well, with one employee going so far as to hang up a poster of Mayer's face above the word "hope," based on the iconic Shepard Fairey illustration of Barack Obama. To understand the enthusiasm around Mayer, just remember that Yahoo had four different CEOs in the year prior to her hiring, two of which ended very poorly. Carol Bartz was fired in September 2011 after investors became disillusioned with her inability to find new sources of revenue and boost the stock price. Scott Thompson, who took over the role in January, was pressured to step down from the company just a few months later amid claims of lying about his computer science degree. Mayer, who was the 20th employee at Google, was viewed as a fresh start for the company, given her experience overseeing product development and recruiting engineering talent. She also was seen as possessing the kind of star power that could revitalize interest in the stale Yahoo brand. One year later, Mayer has successfully boosted morale among employees, trimmed some of the fat from the company and kept Yahoo front and center in the news cycle through a series of product updates, high-profile acquisitions and, yes, her own star power. However, Yahoo's core problem â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the one that plagued Mayer's predecessors â&#x20AC;&#x201D; remains very much unsolved: Its display ad business is on the decline. Yahoo dominated the display ad market last decade, but Google and

216 Facebook have since passed it, thanks in part to the number of ads Google serves through YouTube and Facebook's successful shift to mobile. Yahoo's share of the U.S. display ad market is projected to decline to just 7.8% this year, according to data provided to Mashable from eMarketer, down from about 18.4% in 2008. The decline in display ad revenue is dragging down Yahoo's overall revenue. Yahoo's revenue dropped to $1.1 billion in the March quarter from $1.22 billion the same quarter a year earlier â&#x20AC;&#x201D; even though search revenue actually increased by 6% â&#x20AC;&#x201D; because display ad revenue dropped by 11%. "The vast majority of Yahoo's revenue comes from advertising and they operate in a particularly challenged sub sector of online advertisers," Brian Wieser, a senior analyst at Pivotal Research Group, told Mashable in an interview. "There's nothing that they've done [this past year] that changes that." A Work in Progress Mayer has repeatedly described her strategy to turn Yahoo around as a series of sprints. Yahoo first needs to attract and hold onto "great people," who then work to build "great products," which ultimately boost user engagement and help the company increase its ad revenue. Much of Mayer's focus in her first year was on the first of those sprints. She instituted hundreds of "employee-focused initiatives" and perks to bring Yahoo's work culture more in line with competing tech companies. She also used Yahoo's cash pile to purchase 16 startups, most of which were primarily to bring more mobile engineering talent into the company. Aside from leading to a great deal of press coverage, these efforts have helped Yahoo attract more job applications and improve morale among employees. One survey from Glassdoor, a job site featuring anonymous employee reviews for thousands of companies, found that employee satisfaction at Yahoo has hit a five-year high under Mayer's leadership. In recent months, Mayer has pushed forward on the second sprint by introducing major updates to several Yahoo products, including a complete redesign of Flickr, a redesigned Yahoo homepage and a

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new Yahoo weather app, which won a design award last month from Apple. At the same time, Yahoo has killed off more than a dozen less frequently used products, including AltaVista and Axis. So far, though, these efforts to focus and improve Yahoo's product lineup haven't had much â&#x20AC;&#x201D; if any â&#x20AC;&#x201D; positive impact on Wall Street and Main Street's perceptions of the company. In fact, according to YouGov's BrandIndex, which tracks daily changes in consumer perception of brands, Yahoo is viewed less positively now than it was a year ago. Ted Marzilli, SVP and managing director of BrandIndex, told Mashable that respondents rate Yahoo "in the context of other brands that do similar things," meaning that Yahoo's declining numbers could simply be a result of other competitors performing better. Alternatively, he suggested it could be a sign that consumers are put off by all the changes. "It could also be that I go to Yahoo now and it changed my email format or the homepage," he said. At first blush, Yahoo's stock performance over the past year suggests that Wall Street is a big fan of Mayer. The stock price has increased more than 70% since she took over as CEO, a remarkable run that has added nearly $14 billion to the company's market cap. But that increase has had less to do with Yahoo's acquisition spree or Mayer's sprint-strategy than its 23% stake in Alibaba, a huge Chinese ecommerce company that is expected to go public in the near future. "Much of what Yahoo the company has done doesn't really matter in the context of Yahoo the stock. Almost all the value that's been generated is because of expectations around Alibaba," Wieser said. When asked to name Mayer's biggest accomplishment, he said, "Nothing. Nothing material." Other analysts are a little more generous in their appraisal of Mayer's efforts. "They've certainly begun to place their bets under their new leadership," Clark Fredricksen, VP at eMarketer, told Mashable. "We expect that that

218 will lead to some results both in display and search advertising." What to Expect in Mayer's Second Year at Yahoo During the fourth quarter earnings call in January, Mayer described Yahoo's turnaround efforts as a "multi-year march towards growth." With that in mind, we may not see the full impact of Yahoo's investments play out even in her second year, but Fredricksen does expect to see some signs of improvement in Yahoo's ad business. "The company appears to be slowing down the trend of declining traffic," he said. "As they invest more across multiple sectors of the business, as they focus resources and cut some of the fat that they've had ... you'd expect that they would probably start to see impressions, usage and thus ad inventory stop declining and start to level off rather than fall." In particular, he expects Yahoo to "become much more aggressive" in mobile advertising in an effort to catch up to Facebook and Google. "Those companies have very, very strong not only mobile user bases, but also mobile ad products that have been able to monetize effectively. Yahoo has not," Fredricksen said. The acquisitions Mayer made in year one suggest that changing this will be a big focus area in year two. "That's an area that the company appears to be investing in significantly." There is some cause for optimism about Yahoo's prospects on this front. Data provided to Mashable by comScore shows that Yahoo's audience on smartphones has grown at a faster rate than Google and nearly as fast as Facebook, though it's still behind both companies in overall users. "It's tough to turn the ship around immediately when your ship is such a massive player in the ad market," Fredricksen said. "These things take time."

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Media Coverage Clip Source Date Tonality URL

Business Insider (online) 28-Jul-2013 Negative http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/17/yahootumblr_n_3293349.html

Headline Text

Finding The Logic Behind Marissa Mayerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Monster Acquisition Spree Marissa Mayer is on an insane acquisition spree as she tries to breathe life into Yahoo. In this month alone, she's hoovered up four companies. Since she took over a year ago, she's bought 18 different companies, according to Wikipedia. (We checked Wikipedia against Yahoo's official Twitter feed which announced all the deals.) Her old company, Google, was a prolific acquirer, which must have been an influence over her style. We've assembled the companies here to try to make some sense of her scattershot approach to rebuilding Yahoo. If you look closely, you can see a pattern. Stamped was the first company Mayer bought. Stamped raised ~$3 million. CEO Robby Stein was previously at Google, and worked with Mayer before she brought him to Yahoo. Yahoo reportedly paid around $10 million for Stamped. Stamped was a social mobile review app. Yahoo killed the product and put its team of 10 engineers to work on other stuff. We're not sure what the team is up to right now at Yahoo. Stein is a director of product in NYC for Yahoo building out a team, it seems. Next, she acquired Ontheair, which did video chat hang outs. OnTheAir raised $880,000 in seed funding. It was only around for a few months before it decided to sell to Yahoo. There were only five people on the team. They were building a video chat hang out for mobile phones. Snip.it was a social sharing startup that collects links. Snip.it was killed. It looks like Mayer wanted to hire its CEO Ramy Adeeb, who had a background in investing. He has an eye for startup

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221 talent, so he can help Yahoo make other acquihires.

Yahoo bought Propeld, which made Alike. Yet another acquihire...getting the picture here? The team said in the announcement of the acquisition that it was going to be joining Yahoo's mobile team. So, we're not sure exactly what it's doing. Previously, Alike was doing social recommendations for local businesses. Next, it bought Jybe, a startup by former Yahoos. Jybe was a recommendation startup. Yahoo wants stuff more personalized, so it's a sort of a fit. Summly was the most controversial of all Yahoo startup purchases. Yahoo paid $30 million for Summly, a summarization application built by a 17-year-old. The app takes longer stories and truncates them. Mayer has used it on her earnings calls, and Yahoo has it in Yahoo News. It was a big deal because it's built by a teenager, and it's unclear how much of the technology Summly built on its own. Yahoo bought Astrid, a to-do list app startup. Astrid had 4 million users. Yahoo killed it. Astrid only raised $400,000. GoPollGo's three employees joined Yahoo. GoPollGo did quick polling on Twitter. It raised less than $500,000 in seed money and its three team members joined Yahoo's mobile group in Sunnyvale. On the same day it announced GoPollGo, it also announced the purchase of Milewise. Milewise did search for travel, allowing users to calculate how much a trip would cost when factoring in credit card points. The product was killed and team joined Stamped founder Robbie Stein's group at Yahoo NYC. Yahoo bought a gaming company, Loki Studios. Loki used real world data to create mobile games. Yahoo hasn't done much with gaming, so we're not sure if it kept Loki's team on gaming, or if it just rolled its people into the mobile group. Yahoo paid $1.1 billion for Tumblr, its first major acquisition. After a long run of acquihires, Yahoo made a full-on purchase when it

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223 paid $1.1 billion for Tumblr. The deal happened quickly, and was a bit of a shock. Yahoo is hoping that the social blogging platform will generate a lot of revenue in the future.

Playerscale was a gaming infrastructure startup. Playerscale actually deviates a bit from the pattern. Playscale does infrastructure for online gaming. It doesn't look like Yahoo pulled the plug on the self-funded startup. Seven employees joined Yahoo. Yahoo bought Ghostbird to improve Flickr. Ghostbird did photo apps for the iPhone. In the announcement of the acquisition, Yahoo said Ghostbird would be used to improve Flickr. Instagram is running away with mobile photography. Marissa Mayer clearly thinks she can do something to stop Instagram, and Ghostbird is part of the plan. Yahoo also bought Rondee, a conference calling service for small businesses. Another deviation from the pattern! Rondee was a conference calling service that went to Yahoo's small business group. Kara Swisher, who knows Yahoo better than anyone, was baffled by the purchase. Yahoo bought Biggnoggins, which is just one guy's startup. This is an "acquisition" that makes sense. Bignoggin was the work of Jerry Shen. His tech was baked into Yahoo's fantasy sports apps. Yahoo paid $50 million for Qwiki, which had hype early on. Qwiki won TechCrunch's Disrupt contest back in 2010. The original vision was a video version of Wikipedia. That didn't pan out, so it pivoted three times, finally landing on some sort of mobile video story telling thing. Yahoo paid $50 million for the company. Xobni was an email company. Here's a semi-logical acquisition: Yahoo paid ~$60 million for email management company Xobni. Yahoo mail is still a core piece of the company. Xobni will likely try to improve Yahoo mail. Ztelic is the first international acquisition of the group. Ztelic was a Chinese social network that Yahoo acquired for its R&D

224 group. We have no idea what's up this is one. Mike Issac at AllThingsD suggested it would be used for Yahoo's "personalization" stuff. What does it all mean?!?! There's actually a method to this madness! Yahoo's acquisitions can be lumped into a few groups: 1. The straight up acquihire. Take a company with no traction, kill the product, and plug its engineers into other parts of Yahoo. 2. The talent-with-a-purpose acquisition. Buy a company that clearly could improve one of Yahoo's existing products. 3.

Tumblr.

Each group is a different way to get Yahoo back on its feet. Group 1 is in charge of creating new stuff. Group 2 is in charge of fixing stuff that exists. Tumblr is the hail mary that could just make the rest of Yahoo irrelevant if it's a big hit.

225 Media Coverage Clip

Source Date Tonality URL

TechCrunch (online) 29-Jul-2013 Negative http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/29/yahoo-and-google-are-bothspendingbig-money-on-acquisition-sprees-and-what-that-says-about-theirfutures/

Headline

Yahoo and Google Are Both Spending Big Money On Acquisition Sprees And What That Says About Their Futures

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These days it seems as if a startup so much as glances in Marissa Mayer’s direction, it can expect a bid within 24 hours. There’s been a lot of buzz about Yahoo’s new role as an acquisition hound of late, and Mayer’s attempts to turn the beleaguered giant into a mobile-first company and energize its ranks with young, acqui-hired talent. But Yahoo isn’t alone in its pursuit of “serial acquirer” status. Highlighted by its blockbuster acquisition of Waze last month, Google has quietly snapped up a cadre of companies as well — and has spent a pretty penny doing it. In its “10-Q” filing with the SEC on Thursday, Google revealed that it spent $1.3 billion on acquisitions during the first half of 2013, with $966 million of that total going to Waze. While reports had varied on the final purchase price, according to the filing, the acquisition of Waze was “for a total cash consideration of $966 million,” with “$847 million attributed to goodwill and $188 million attributed to intangible assets,” minus the $69 million in other net liabilities assumed from Waze’s books. Though the final number is subject to change, it’s now abundantly clear just how hungry Google was to beef up its social mapping data and prevent it from falling into the hands of its competitors. On top of its new social mapping prize, Google has made another 15 acquisitions so far this year, shelling out $344 million in additional assets to buy companies like Wavii, Makani Power, Channel Intelligence and DNNresearch. Channel Intelligence represented the largest deal of the batch, with Google paying $125 million to continue its charge on the eCommerce front as well. With Wavii going for an estimated $30 million and 13 companies still accounted for, we can deduce that Google, like Yahoo, has also been making its fair share of small-ticket acqui-hires over the year. In fact,

227 Google acquired 53 companies in 2012, chief of which was Motorola Mobility at a price tag of $12.5 billion. The rest of its acquisitions cost $1.1 billion. Notably, Google was in the midst of carrying out this M&A strategy when Marissa Mayer left the company to become CEO of Yahoo, and it’s clearly one that she’s now using to shore up Yahoo’s weaknesses. Yahoo spent most of 2012 wrapped up in internal struggles and attempted board takeovers. Compared to Google’s 53 acquisitions in 2012, Yahoo only made two — both of which took place only after Mayer had taken over. Since Mayer took the reins last summer, Yahoo has accelerated its acquisition strategy exponentially, making a whopping 18 acquisitions. And, while that’s mind-boggling enough as it is, Yahoo is likely far from calling it quits. As my colleague Alex Wilhelm recently pointed out, Mayer actually has plenty of runway. Thanks to its stake in Alibaba, Yahoo has an ace up its sleeve that’s potentially worth tens of billion of dollars and which can continue to fuel its aggressive M&A strategy. For many reasons, this is critical if Mayer is to have any shot at turning the ship around. If Yahoo really wants to strengthen its position in mobile and revamp its aging video and media technology, the company has to continue going after outside talent. SIMILAR APPROACH TO M&A, DIFFERENT STORIES While Yahoo and Google are both making headlines for the slew of acquisitions they’ve made over the past year — and the money they’re spending to do it — this shared approach says very different things about what each company perceives as its greatest need (read: deficiency). Yahoo’s biggest problem, at least in the short term, is PR. In other words, when Mayer took the helm, Yahoo has been spinning in circles for years. They were directionless and basically seen as a has-been company that had lost its relevance in the modern tech industry. By acquihiring young talent, Mayer is showing that she’s eager to return Yahoo to its former standing and regain its luster — in part, by make it attractive to younger entrepreneurs but also by updating its product to make Yahoo a destination for younger people in general. Its billion-dollar acquisition of Tumblr is a prime example: Tumblr’s core user base consists of young people, teenagers and middleschoolers. So not only was Tumblr an opportunity to make Yahoo seem like a cool company for young people and generate more traffic, but it also allows Yahoo to play to its strength, leveraging its ad network to monetize

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229 Tumblr’s massive content silo. Mayer’s approach to M&A is also proving that the company is eager to fix its lagging mail, search and news tools, which have been gathering dust and have been eclipsed by the likes of Google and Microsoft. Some of these problems will be easy for Yahoo to address and fix in the short term, but they could also create more issues for the company over the long-term. Yahoo is attempting to make a litany of significant, structural changes all at once, making it tough to achieve any kind of real cohesion across its products. It may do wonders for the stock, but it could easily end up being an ad hoc, duct-tape-style solution that leaves the real, infrastructural dangers roiling beneath the surface. In contrast, it’s taken years for Google to achieve any sort of cohesion across its own disparate products and projects. But its recently embarked on a new, “One Google Era,” in which the company has begun to prioritize collaboration and unification across its properties, which, in turn, gives more meaning to both its M&A and product strategies. Google’s acquisition of Waze, for example, allows it to add a social layer to its existing mapping and navigation products, strengthening an already formidable arsenal of mobile properties, rather than, in Yahoo’s case, allowing it to start from square one. Google is now focused on becoming a big data empire and adding pieces that will help it power its massive cloud services infrastructure and products that are decidedly focused on real time. This applies across its diverse properties, whether that’s to allow people to collaborate and communicate in real time through Hangouts, Docs or Gmail, search in real time or navigate in real time through Google Maps and Waze. Going forward, Google will begin looking more to acquire and build products that will prepare it for increasingly direct competition with companies like Amazon. One place that Google has been struggling of late is in its e-commerce and shopping, where its ambitions haven’t been met with the usual rewards or dominance it’s come to expect from its ventures into search, mobile and advertising. For example, while Google’s dominance in search remains, when it comes to discovery and engagement around products, Amazon has been leaving it in the dust. If Larry Page’s mission is for Google to use its realtime infrastructure to create utilities that are critical to their everyday lives — whether in communication or otherwise — falling behind in product marketplaces is a big problem.

230 That’s likely why Google is working to boost its marketplace ambitions with products like the rumored “Helpouts,” which could help find a real home for its mobile payment products, like Wallet, and communication product like Hangouts to power real-time commerce. Amazon and eBay have been busy tearing down the walls that stand in the way of buying and selling on the web. Now Google wants to join the fun, and tools like Helpouts point towards a future in which Google may begin acquiring the kind of talent that can help it to build a real marketplace on top of search and other core products.

231 Media Coverage Clip Source Date Tonality URL

Mashable (online) 1-Aug-2013 Positive http://mashable.com/2013/07/31/yahoo-marissa-mayer-20-startups/

Headline Text

The 20 Startups Marissa Mayer Has Acquired at Yahoo Yahoo acquired app maker Lexity on Wednesday, the company's 20th since Marissa Mayer became CEO of Yahoo a little more than a year ago. Twenty startups is no small number, especially when you consider that in just 13 months, the 18-year-old company has boosted its acquisition count by nearly a quarter. The majority of these acquisitions have been small â&#x20AC;&#x201D; five were purchased for only $16 million together â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and were more often for talent than specific products. Generally speaking, Mayer has sought out companies that have built promising, if unsuccessful, consumer-facing mobile apps. In most cases, those apps have been shut down, and their engineering teams put to work on Yahoo's own. For example, the founders of the first startup Mayer acquired, Stamped, were moved to head up Yahoo's mobile engineering office in New York where, multiple sources tell me, they're working on a major revamp of Yahoo Finance, among other products. In a few cases, the acquisitions were for more than talent. The biggest of these, Yahoo's $1.1 billion cash deal for Tumblr, was all about the product: Mayer, impressed by the blogging network's massive, engaged and rapidly growing user base, has decided to operate it as an independent company. Qwiki, a movie-making iPhone app, also continues to run as its own team within Yahoo, as will Lexity. Other acquisitions involved actual technology: Summly, e-mail plugin Ztelic and mobile ad startup Admovate are all being integrated into Yahoo's existing products. Summly's summarization technology has, in fact, already been integrated into Yahoo News. 1. Stamped: iPhone app that allows users to keep track of and share the

232 things they like with their friends, such as restaurants, books, films and other apps. App shut down, nine-person team moved to Yahoo's NYC mobile engineering office. Price: Less than $6 million (Yahoo 10-K filing). 2. OnTheAir: Live video conversation platform, like Google Hangout. App shut down, five-person team moved to Yahoo's San Francisco mobile office. Price: Less than $6 million (Yahoo 10-K filing). 3. Snip.it Tool lets users collect ("snip") content from the web and share with friends â&#x20AC;&#x201D; like a less visual Pinterest. Price: Less than $10 million (Yahoo 10-Q filing). 4. Alike: App helps users discover venues nearby based on their interests. App shut down, team joined Yahoo's mobile office in Sunnyvale, Calif. Price: Less than $10 million (Yahoo 10-Q filing). 5. Jybe: App helps users discover things to do and places to eat via personalized recommendations. All five (former Yahoo) employees assigned to improve targeting and personalization on Yahoo's products. Price: Less than $10 million (Yahoo 10-Q filing). 6. Summly: iPhone app that automatically aggregates and shares summaries of news articles. Tech integrated into Yahoo News, 17-yearold founder joined Yahoo's NYC office. Estimated price: $30 million. 7. Astrid: Email management and to-do list app for iPhone, Android and Windows 7. Staff joined Yahoo's mobile team. Estimated price: Unknown. 8. MileWise: Lets users factor in airline miles, reward programs, and hotel and credit card points to find the cheapest flights. App shut down, five-person team joined Yahoo's NYC mobile office. Price: Unknown. 9. GoPollGo: Polling tool that could be quickly deployed on the web and even directly on Facebook and Twitter. App shut down, three-person team joined Yahoo's Sunnyvale mobile group. Price: Unknown.

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10. Loki Studios: Mobile gaming startup that incorporated personalized elements, like the local weather, into gameplay. App shut down, seven person team joined Yahoo mobile team. Price: Unknown. 11. Tumblr: Blogging network with 300 million unique monthly visitors. Continues to operate as independent company. Price: $1.1 billion. 12. PlayerScale: Toolset that helps developers bring games to multiple platforms with features like leaderboards and virtual currencies. Threeperson team continues to offer same services, with new services promised soon. Price: Unknown. 13. GhostBird Software: Creators of mobile photography apps KitCam and PhotoForge2. Apps discontinued, four-member staff joined Yahoo's Flickr team. Price: Unknown. 14. Rondee: Free conference calling service. Platform shut down, staff joined Yahoo's small business team. Price: Unknown. 15. Bignoggins: One-man company that developed bestselling apps for managing fantasy sports teams. Integrated apps into Yahoo Fantasy Sports' flagship apps in late July. Price: Unknown. 16. Qwiki: iPhone app that lets users create short movies. App continues to operate. Estimated price: $40-$50 million. 17. Xobni: E-mail add-on that makes it easier to search and find contacts. Product integrated into Yahoo Mail, staff joined Yahoo Mail team in Sunnyvale. Estimated price: $30-$40 million. 18.

Ztelic: One-year-old social data analysis startup. Eight employees

joined Yahooâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s R&D team in Beijing. Price: Unknown. 19. Admovate: Mobile ad targeting technology firm. Team joined Yahoo's display advertising team in Sunnyvale. Price: Unknown. 20.

Lexity: App maker for small ecommerce businesses. Apps will

234 continue to operate. Price: Unknown. What's Next Yahoo still has plenty of cash to spend on acquisitions â&#x20AC;&#x201D; $4.8 billion as of the end of June. The company has built up a solid base of mobile engineering talent to date. We now expect to see Yahoo focus on acquiring products and talent in the ad technology space, like Mayer's 19th acquisition, Admovate, a company that has developed technology for targeted mobile advertising. Such moves would signal to investors that Mayer is serious about reversing Yahoo's continued decline in advertising revenue, and help it develop products to compete with other ad tech firms like Google, Facebook and Twitter. We also wouldn't be surprised to see more investment in video technology companies, particularly given Mayer's interest in both Qwiki (which Yahoo bought) and Hulu (which it didn't). Such moves would also help Yahoo capture some of the money being poured into the rapidly growing online video ad market, which would simultaneously help offset the company's declines in display and search advertising.

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Media Coverage Clip Source Date Tonality URL

Forbes (online) 12-Aug-2013 Negative http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml

Headline

Marissa Mayer Flushes $81 Million More Of Yahooâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cash And Stock For David Karp

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After paying Tumblr’s founder $250 million in May, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer decided that was not enough to keep from “screwing up” the deal. So on August 9, Yahoo offered Karp $81 million more to stay at the company for four years. This personnel move will not pay off in higher Yahoo revenues and profits. Why would an entrepreneur want to spend four years as a middle manager at a shrinking dinosaur that just paid him $250 million? It is surely not to suffer the indignity of going from being king of the hill in a start-up to being tasered by the frustrations of conforming to big company culture. It must be the money. To be sure, I am not saying that Yahoo’s shares will stop rising. Since Mayer took over as CEO, its stock has risen 73%. And these spiking shares certainly reflect something other than Yahoo’s improved financial performance. After all, Yahoo revenues have fallen 7% under Mayer as has its market share – for example, comScore reported that in June 2013, its core search market share fell 0.5 percentage points to 11.4% — while Bing gained the same amount and Google controlled nearly 67% of the market. Since Yahoo’s shares are unhinged from its financial performance – the only possible explanation for the rise in its shares is something else. Some have speculated that Yahoo’s share price rise reflects the growing value of its stake in Alibaba. Perhaps others thought that hedge fund honcho, Dan Loeb, would arrange a sale of the company. But Loeb left Yahoo’s board after Yahoo bought back his shares. Unless Karp and Mayer can defy well-established differences between a

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big public company and a tiny start-up, this move is likely not to add to Yahoo’s financial well-being. What are these differences? In a publiclytraded company, the CEO is responsible for key decisions – the same as in a start-up. But this move pays Karp as if he was Yahoo CEO, even though he is not. Yahoo is buying four years of an executive who has built a company with no revenue, who lacks experience working in a big company, and who will be a middle manager with diminished power. Before Yahoo acquired Tumblr it had no revenues and was burning through cash at a rapid clip. Its acquisition by Yahoo has caused many of its users to flee because they do not want to be associated with stodgy Yahoo. Nor would companies want to run ads next to much of its dodgy content. Running Tumblr as part of Yahoo is very different than as an independent company. Karp will lack the control that he had while running Tumblr on his own. If he wants to hire people, he will need to persuade Mayer that spending on his business is a better use of corporate resources than on other Yahoo businesses that generate actual revenues and profits. How will Mayer be able to justify such spending to Yahoo’s board? And what happens if Karp and Mayer have different objectives for Tumblr? For example, what if Karp wants to give away the service and not advertise so it can increase the number of users while Mayer wants to focus on selling as many advertisements as possible to Tumblr users? If Karp gets to do what he wants, Tumblr will continue to be a cash sink for Yahoo. If Mayer wins that battle, Karp will surely be demotivated. Moreover, the advertisements that Yahoo decides to push onto Tumblr’s users may drive away even more of them. Finally, there is the basic problem of Karp’s motivation. In most deals in which big companies acquire start-ups, it is understood that the entrepreneur will leave after a transition period to go on and work on

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another venture. That is probably what he wanted to do that after he got his $250 million in May. It took only $81 million to convince Karp to stick around to help Mayer make it look like Yahoo would not screw up its acquisition of Tumblr. The question in my mind is whether four years from now Yahoo will be able to tout a boost in revenues and profits that flowed from its investment in Tumblr and Karp.

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Appendix D Social Media Clipping â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Twitter (Issue 2) Positive

Negative

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241

242

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Social Media Clipping â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Tumblr (Issue 2) Negative

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245

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Appendix E Media Coverage Summary (Issue 3) No.

Headline

Author

Date

Source

Tonality

Yahoo Will Update Its Logo!

Catherine Shu

6-Aug-2013

TechCrunch

Neutral

(online)

Yahoo's Rebranding: 30

Scott Austin

7-Aug-2013

Logos in 30 Days

The Wall

Neutral

Street Journal (online)

Yahoo is getting a new logo -

Jon Swartz

7-Aug-2013

in a month

Yahoo is getting a new logo

Yahoo's Tweaks to 18-Year Old Brand are Underwhelming, Industry Execs Say

USA Today

Neutral

(online)

Brandon Griggs 8-Aug-2013 CNN (online)

Tim Peterson

9-Aug-2013

AdAge (online)

Neutral

Negative

248 6

Yahoo rebranding: Will new logo, changes create new

Lauren Hepler

14-Aug-

The Business

2013

Journals

brand?

Neutral

(online)

Yahoo Branding Campaign

Jonathan Salem

15-Aug-

Forbes

Graphically Illustrates Why

Baskin

2013

(online)

Negative

Logos Don't Matter

Yahoo Picks A New

Mahesh Sharma 4-Sep-2013

GeoCities Logo

Yahoo!'s new logo, revealed

TechCrunch

Negative

(online)

Katrina Radic

5-Sep-2013

by Katrina Radic

Branding

Negative

Magazine (online)

Yahoo unveils whimsical

unspecified

5-Sep-2013

new logo

How Yahoo Picked a New Look For An 18-Year-Old Brand

Detroit Free

Neutral

Press (online)

Tim Peterson

5-Sep-2013

AdAge (online)

Neutral

249 12

New Yahoo logo looks

unspecified

5-Sep-2013

remarkably like old Yahoo

Fox News

Neutral

(online)

logo

Yahoo's New Logo Fails To

Robert Hof

5-Sep-2013

Impress - But People Are

Forbes

Negative

(online)

Talking About It!

CEO Mayer geeks out on

Scott Martin

5-Sep-2013

Yahoo's new logo

Yahoo! has a new logo â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

USA Today (online)

Alexandra Petri

5-Sep-2013

The

but we need to talk about the

Washington

Post (online)

Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s how Yahoo came up with its new logo

Neutral

Brian Fung

5-Sep-2013

Neutral

The

Washington

Washingto

Post (online)

n Post (online)

250 17

Yahoo unveils new logo for

unspecified

5-Sep-2013

The

first time since founding 18

Washington

years ago

Post (online)

Yahoo Introduces a New,

Neutral

Brian Feldman

5-Sep-2013

The Atlantic Wire (online)

Negative

Aaron Taube

5-Sep-2013

Business

Neutral

Hipper Logo and That's

Pretty Much It

The Internet Hates Yahoo's New Logo

Insider (online)

Did Marissa Mayer Pick the

Seth Fiegerman

6-Sep-2013

Wrong Yahoo Logo?

Yahooâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new logo makes it look more like a cosmetics brand than an internet company

Mashable

Neutral

(online)

Jeff Yang

7-Sep-2013

Quartz (online)

Negative

251 22

Yahoo! Brand Needs More

Patrick Hanlon

8-Sep-2013

Than New Logo

Marissa Mayer defends new

Forbes

Negative

(online)

Casey Newton

logo as Yahoo hits 800

11-Sep-

The Verge

2013

(online)

11-Sep-

The Huffington

Neutral

million monthly users

Marissa Mayer Defends Yahoo Logo

Timothy Stenovec

2013 Post (online)

Neutral

252

Media Coverage Clip Source

Tech Crunch (digital)

Date

6/8/2013

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/06/yahoo-will-update-its-logo/

Headline

Yahoo Will Update Its Logo!

Text

Yahoo unveiled a new logo today with a sans-serif font similar to the ones used in other companies’ recent image overhauls, but keeps its purple color and oftmaligned exclamation point. Don’t like it? That logo is just the first of 30 variations Yahoo will show off over the next month on its homepage and other sites before the final version is revealed on September 5 (so you’ll have plenty of other redesigns to make fun of). The redesign isn’t a complete surprise. Last October, a TechCrunch reader told us that he’d been invited to take an online survey with a potential redesign that also featured a sans-serif font. Unlike the logo Yahoo showed off today, however, the updated logo shown in the survey had its purple color toned down to a quieter hue. The user survey came just after Yahoo announced its purchase

253 of Stamped, the first of CEO Marissa Mayer’s acquisition spree. In a post on the company’s Tumblr, Chief Marketing Officer Kathy Savitt said that Yahoo’s new logo “will be a modern redesign that’s more reflective of our reimagined design and new experiences.” Under Mayer, Yahoo has been busy reinventing itself with a series of more than two dozen acqui-hires, the most recent of which was social browsing startup Rockmelt. As Alex Wilhelm writes, the company’s aggressive attempts to overhaul its operation has increased its workforce morale, but it’s uncertain if it will actually reverse the company’s declining revenue. Furthermore, Yahoo still has to win over consumers. For example, many Tumblr users threatened to quit after Yahoo’s $1 billion purchase of the site in May and it’s still unclear how the company will handle adult content as it seeks to turn Tumblr into a platform for “brand advertising.”

Playing around with its logo is part of Yahoo’s efforts to reflect “a renewed sense of purpose and progress,” but it remains to be seen if consumers are equally inspired.

254 Media Coverage Clip Source

The Wall Street Journal (digital)

Date

7/8/2013

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/08/07/yahoos-rebranding-30-logos-in-30-days/

Headline

Yahoo’s Rebranding: 30 Logos in 30 Days

Text

Marissa Mayer is not only trying to refresh Yahoo'sYHOO +2.72% products and office culture, she’s also planning to redesign the company’s longtime logo.

In a PR stunt, Yahoo will unveil 30 different logos over 30 days before yodeling the official winner on Sept. 4.

Overkill? Perhaps. But the rebranding puts Yahoo in the spotlight for a month with free advertising. Don’t expect any major changes, though. Yahoo’s marketing chief, Kathy Savitt, says Yahoo will preserve the color purple and the exclamation point. “After all, some things never go out of style,” Savitt wrote, without exclamation.

255 Readers, what do you think Yahoo should do?

Here’s the first redesign issued today….

…and the current logo:

256

Media Coverage Clip Source

USA Today (digital)

Date

7/8/2013

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/08/06/yahoo-is-getting-anewlogo/2617033/

Headline

Yahoo is getting a new logo - in a month

Text

SAN FRANCISCO â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Internet icon Yahoo is changing its distinctive logo for the o decades. first time in nearly tw The question is: To what? And will the exclamation point stay or go? Each day over the next four weeks â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the Silicon Valley company is showcasing 30 different logos distinctive purple on its home page. On Sept. 4, one of them will replace Yahoo's Y! logo.

The company has decided on the new logo, but wants to showcase different looks to depict its "renaissance" under its new CEO, Marissa Mayer.

257 The logo change, the first major modification in Yahoo's 18-year history, will be promoted in a "30 days of change" marketing campaign, company officials told USA TODAY. Yahoo tweaked its logo shortly after it was founded, but decided this time to create a bold, new look.

"The logo is your calling card, identity, manifestation," Chief Marketing Officer Kathy Savitt says.

"The Yahoo logo is iconic; some people love it, some people hate it," Savitt says. "We decided to change it, to reflect new products … and depict our next chapter."

Since Mayer took over as CEO a year ago, Yahoo has scooped up more than 20 companies — including Tumblr and, last week, Rockmelt — and overhauled its existing product lineup, including its home page, Flickr and e-mail.

The charismatic Mayer has also reversed the company's flagging fortunes, with a series of encouraging quarters, an infusion of fresh talent through acquisitions and a 70% bump in its shares. Still, Yahoo faces fierce competition from the likes of Google and Facebook for digital ads.

"We've been talking about changing the logo since September," Savitt says. "The timing is right. It will reflect our brand, which is entertaining, fun, engaging, delightful, playful."

Yahoo tinkered with the look of its logo shortly after the company was founded in 1995, but it has largely remained the same for years. In changing its iconic logo,

258 Yahoo joins Twitter, Microsoft and eBay, which have done the same. In Yahoo's case, it' may tweak its typeface, color (purple) and punctuation (exclamation point), but keep the yodel sound the same, Savitt says.

"There is both risk and reward in changing a logo," says Dennis Ryan, chief creative officer at advertising agency Olson, whose clients include Target and General Mills. He recently redid the logo for Belize, for that country's tourism bureau. "Good logos represent every memory consumers have for a particular company."

"Yahoo is, in many ways, the Internet's first icon," Savitt says. "It was the first wave for discovering content on the Web."

Albert Tan, brand director at mobile-security start-up Lookout, which changed its logo this year, says the underlying rationale for change has more to do with where a company is headed. A logo change also requires updates to a company's product line and mission statement, Tan says.

259 Media Coverage Clip Source

CNN (digital)

Date

8/8/2013

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/07/tech/web/yahoo-new-logo/index.html

Headline

Yahoo is getting a new logo

Text

(CNN) -- Under CEO Marissa Mayer, Yahoo might still be trying to shed its image as a relic of the 1990s Internet era. But hey, it's getting a new logo! Yahoo announced Wednesday that it will unveil a new corporate logo September 4 -the first such change since the company was founded 18 years ago. The new look will retain the current purple color scheme and, yes, its trademark exclamation point. Yodel away, Yahoo fans. "Over the past year, there's been a renewed sense of purpose and progress at Yahoo!, and we want everything we do to reflect this spirit of innovation," Chief Marketing Officer Kathy Savitt wrote in a blog post. "While the company is rapidly evolving, our logo â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the essence of our brand â&#x20AC;&#x201D; should too."

260 To build some buzz around the new logo, the Internet company will display a different variation of the logo on its homepage and throughout its network in the United States for each of the next 30 days. The first example, shown above, opts for a more streamlined look, although the second "O" is larger than the first, reflecting -in Yahoo's words -- the company's " fun, vibrant, and welcoming" character. The variations on the new logo -- this video clip offers a potential preview -- also will be showcased each day on Yahoo's Twitter account (#dailylogo). Why the interest in Yahoo CEO? Mayer has been working to reinvent the struggling Yahoo since she took over leadership of the company in July of last year. In the past 12 months Yahoo has bought more than 16 startups, including the popular Tumblr blogging platform, and reinvigorated its older brands such as photo site Flickr. Under her reign, Yahoo's stock price has climbed from $15 to almost $30 (it's currently at $27), although some analysts remain skeptical about the company's longterm fortunes. Yahoo's rebranding follows similar logo changes by other aging Internet giants, including AOL, eBay and Microsoft. "The new logo will be a modern redesign that's more reflective of our reimagined design and new experiences," Savitt said.

261

Media Coverage Clip Source

Advertising Age (digital)

Date

9/8/2013

Tonality

Negative

URL

http://adage.com/article/digital/yahoo-s-tweaks-18-yearbrandunderwhelming/243629/

Headline

Yahoo's Tweaks to 18-Year Old Brand are Underwhelming, Industry Execs Say

Text

Amid an overarching company turnaround under CEO Marissa Mayer, Yahoo has decided to redesign its 18-year-old logo and devised a 30-day campaign to drum up attention, spearheaded by CMO Kathy Savitt. But will the effort prove effective?

"I think they've got bigger problems than their logo," said Forrester principal analyst Jim Nail, alluding to the portal's declining display advertising revenue and struggles to make money off its mobile audience. "Aside from that flip answer, the whole name 'Yahoo' and the design of that logo is still very, at best, Web 2.0 if not Web 1.0. It's a bit dated."

"The logo to me feels a little hokey, it's old, and I really support redesigns," said

262

263 Deutsch LA's chief digital officer Winston Binch. "It won't save their business, but great design can do a lot. It can lead people to reconsider Yahoo, a better customer experience, get employees reenergized."

Still, there's the question of whether Yahoo's decision to redesign its logo is makeover of a symbol or symbolic of the company's broader turnaround. Consider what competitor AOL did when it unveiled a half-dozen new logos after splitting from Time Warner as a declaration of independence.

"A logo refresh can be a good statement to say, 'We're not your father's Yahoo,'" Mr. Nail said.

But some in the industry felt Yahoo's strategy to preview one new logo candidate a day over 30 days came across as gimmicky.

In a Facebook post, branding expert Laura Ries said it's bound to confuse consumers. "First of all, drastic logo changes are generally not a good idea (ie GAP, JCP, Tropicana)," she wrote. "Second of all, instead of changing it in a decisive manner...they will roll out 30 days of other logos to totally confuse people and make mush of any visual identity the brand had left in the mind before revealing the new look."

"It doesn't feel all that fresh. Google does this routinely," Mr. Binch said, referring to the Google Doodles the search giant rolls out with increasing frequency for events as varied as the Fourth of July and Ella Fitzgerald's birthday. "I don't feel they went far

264 enough. It's a missed opportunity to engage people. If you're trying to make real news with the redesign, you have to go to go for it."

Of the three logos Yahoo has so far trotted ou t, there is little variation, perhaps in part because Yahoo has said it is retaining the logo's purple coloring and exclamation mark. "They just don't look all that different. They're very incrementally different with different fonts essentially," said Binch. Mr.

And Yahoo has only

timidly

involved its audience in the undertaking. People can

reblog, like or leave comments on the candidates posted to Yahoo's Tumblr, but the company didn't implement a voting mechanism for people to pick out what the new should logo be and have a sense of ownership in the decision and Yahoo's brand. By not doing that, the company risks rans when Yahoo people gravitating to images that end up as alsoreveals the new logo on September 5.

"If this is a campaign, this is the first afternoon. "And again I'vebyheard of it," that makes me worried that this is a new setMr. ofNail said on Friday executives rather than a strategic statement today, where it's more of a personal choice headed and why that's different kind of message Yahoo needs to get out." about who Yahoo is that it was in the past. That's the

Yahoo and Ms. Savitt were not immediately available for comment on the campaign.

265

Media Coverage Clip Source

The Business Journals (digital)

Date

14/8/2013

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/how-to/marketing/2013/08/yahooincrebranding-liquid-agency.html?page=all

Headline

Yahoo rebranding: Will new logo, changes create new brand?

266 Text

As Yahoo Inc. CEO Marissa Mayer undertakes a global rebranding effort that will yield a new logo in early September, her company's reputation will remain a major hurdle. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The challenge they have is overcoming the perception that Yahoo is a bloated company that has not been able to innovate and has tripped over itself many times,â&#x20AC;? said Alfredo Muccino, co-founder and chief creative officer of Liquid Agency, a San Jose-based brand experience agency. In her first year on the job, Mayer has taken tangible steps to change Silicon Valley's expectations for Yahoo's culture. In addition to ending telecommuting, she relaunched photo-sharing tool Flickr and completed a series of high profile acquisitions, like the $1.1 billion purchase of Tumblr.

267 Those moves provide a substantive foundation for the cosmetic change a new logo will provide. Some variation on the tech giant's signature purple text and exclamation point logo will stay, Yahoo has said. "I think this is well timed," said Dennis Hahn, executive vice president of brand experience at Liquid Agency. “If they had done this right when Marissa Mayer took office, it would have been a disaster because there was nothing behind it." Mayer's ability to restore Yahoo to rapid earnings growth and attract new users will determine her success and longevity at the company. A successful rebranding campaign can help Mayer accomplish those goals. Muccino said the jury is still out on how much Yahoo's marketing gurus can change consumer perceptions, but he is staying tuned for now. “We’re talking about behavior, not a surface-level re-skinning,” he said. “(Mayer’s) actions around telecommuting were controversial. I think it takes courage to affect change.” Great corporate brands evoke a single thought in consumers' minds. For Volvo, it's safety. For Coke, it's refreshment. Yahoo, which provides many Web services, is a difficult brand to capture in a word. "Putting a new logo on something is not rebranding it," said Maria Amundson, general manager of public relations firm Edelman Silicon Valley. "Most consumers are not duped," she said. "They understand that a business has to really authentically change." Stay tuned for this Friday's Business Journal for more on the world of corporate rebranding.

268

Media Coverage Clip Source

Forbes (digital)

Date

15/8/2013

Tonality

Negative

URL

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathansalembaskin/2013/08/15/yahoobrandingcampaign-graphically-illustrates-why-logos-dont-matter/

Headline

Yahoo Branding Campaign Graphically Illustrates Why Logos Don't Matter

Text

Yahoo YHOO +2.91% is almost halfway through a month’s worth of a branding campaign intended to introduce its newly-redesigned logo on September 4th. Called “30 Days of Change,” it features a different version of the logo on its site every day. Though unrelated to the campaign, at least one online marketplace has challenged designers to post logo treatments, and 3,000 have already been submitted.

I’d say the campaign is a graphic illustration of why logos don’t matter. Pun intended.

You’d think that visual elements like logos would be more important to brands

269

270 nowadays, especially since we carry little screens around with us in our pockets. But the practice is far larger than that. Brands must have a look-and-feel that is carried through everything, from website designs, to the headers on invoices and images painted on trucks (or whatever). The presumption is that this consistency in graphics yields better brand recognition and, ideally, value.

I wonder.

Most of the liturgy of branding was written over 100 years ago, when technology and economics allowed businesses to get big enough to deal with customers who couldn’t be met or served personally. Before that, branding was no more than the name of a proprietor, perhaps an identifier of the business type (think image of shoe on a shingle for a cobbler), and the resulting brand identify earned by the giveandtake of daily operations. We have a graphics perspective on brands because the emergent media of the 20th century was print, followed by TV, which required imagery to label the business propositions of far-away companies. That’s why we talk about “brand” and “image” as the same thing. For most of commercial history, it was “brand” and “reality.” It’s that way, again.

Internet experience has revived our ability to deal directly with one another, taking out the interstitial distance and delay of branding. It allows us to define brands by what they do versus what they say or show. Just think of some of the brands you care most about, and ask yourself if the graphics are anything more than an identifier for

271

272 your satisfying experiences. I’d go even further: Are you aware of what some of those logos look like? I can’t remember Amazon’s or, for that matter, whether Google GOOG -0.5% has one logo or a hundred of them. Logos may prompt recognition, but isn’t the meaning we associate with them a result of reality, not the imagination of designers?

Getting back to those screens in our pockets, the value of brands is less visual appeal than it is authenticity, relevance, and utility. That means that text works just as good as imagery, if not far better when it comes to communicating clearly and enabling experiences. Words are the killer smartphone medium, which argues for them to be legible first and foremost. Everything else is, well, old-fashioned thinking about graphics.

Which begs the question of what does Yahoo’s logo campaign have to do with the reality of its business proposition?

A lot is going on at the place, and much of it is directionally very positive. It has redesigned the UI on some of its core products (disclosure: I use its news page and really like it), the time people spend on its site is trending up, and it has built a giant mobile staff. The company bought Tumblr and lots of small startups, and also has stake in Chinese firm Alibaba Group, which promises large payoffs someday. Employee recruitment and retention are up, despite that brouhaha about telecommuting.

The flip side is that revenue fell 7% during the 2Q vs. last year, and its forecasts for

273 the rest of year were lowered below Wall Street‘s expectations. More troubling is that its display ad revenue is down 12%. For a company that is reinventing itself, Yahoo still makes money the old fashioned way: It sells ad space, and there’s no consensus understanding of how it will replace it. Its logo has absolutely no bearing on that answer.

So what does the campaign tell us? Well, it says that it has a marketing department looking for ways to get attention, which might make more people check out its site and thereby improve the metrics I noted above. That’s totally legit. But it doesn’t tell us anything else about why or how the business is any different now than it was before the campaign began. In fact, its very premise about the graphic nature of branding tells us that at least some things at the company have remained very much the same. After that, I’m not sure it can tell us anything at all.

After 30 days of different logos and thousands of additional riffs on it, I fear that the “official” logo revealed in early September will be nothing more than the 31st iteration.

274 Media Coverage Clip Source

TechCrunch (digital)

Date

4/9/2013

Tonality

Negative

URL

http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/04/yahoo-picks-a-new-geocities-logo/

Headline

Yahoo Picks A New GeoCities logo

Text

After months of hype, questionable marketing spend, and 30 days of ‘meh’, Yahoo! has unveiled the next big move in its ambitious transformation: a slimmed down logo. where many of us first learned to buil

Honestly, the new logo reminds one a lot of fonts used in the 90′s, especially the Unfortunately, this is no longer the 90′s and

stock beveled and glossy fonts that appeared on the internet portal GeoCitie d these funny things called ‘web pages’.

Pantone Violet C.

this logo is feeling pretty dated The logo is set in Optima, has had bevels applied, and is a flavour of purple called It has a distinctly

old-fashioned-internet vibe when it comes down

275 to it. The slightly tilted exclamation point remains…an exclamation point. In case

276 you’re wondering, it was tilted by exactly nine degrees. Many were hoping that it would go away, but Mayer had said a few weeks ago that it would stick around. One other thing retained is the slightly larger ‘O’ at the end of the logo. This has long been taken to be an onomatopoeic representation of the famous Yahoo ‘yodel’ from its commercials. The old Yahoo logo, though dated in its own way, was also chock full of whimsy. The new emblem feels buttoned up and slimmed down. Perhaps the company is trying to project a tighter, more controlled image now. In that, at least, it may have succeeded. In case you miss the new gif-based image in the top left corner of the screen, the playful exclamation point dances around the Y-A-H-O-O like a lost Pixar lamp looking for its home. Gifs are something Yahoo has heavily adopted since its acquisition of Tumblr, and is no doubt aimed at catching the sleep eyes of millions of netizens waking up to a brand new day. In 2009, Yahoo shuttered GeoCities, which it had purchased ten years earlier. That was also the year that it picked purple as its new color. Though the logo is said to be a ‘nod’ to the company’s history, its original color of choice was red. On her Tumblr, Mayer said she and the logo design team rolled up their sleeves one weekend this summer and weighed every detail of the new badge. They decided:

- No straight lines. - Letters with thicker and thinner strokes, reflecting the subjective nature of Yahoo’s editorial. - And a mathematical consistency, for

277 coherency. And of course ”a pantone that needs no number and no introduction

,” Mayer

wrote. “We knew we wanted a logo that reflected Yahoo – whimsical, yet sophisticated. Modern and fresh,” she wrote. “Having a human touch, personal. Proud.” Aside from the fact that the logo had remained relatively unchanged since 1995 (when a seemingly unstoppable Microsoft prepared to transform the world of personal computing) she said that 87 percent of staff were demanding a new look, either iterative or radical. The response on Twitter was underwhelming, to say the least. If you’re interested in the learning more about the story behind this facelift, intern Max Ma has prepared a “fun and cool” video of its online makeover — replete with the tunes of Perth-based pop group Empire of The Sun. Meanwhile, on Google.com, it’s business as usual.

278 Media Coverage Clip Source

Branding Magazine (digital)

Date

5/9/2013

Tonality

Negative

URL

http://www.brandingmagazine.com/2013/09/05/yahoo-new-logo-revealed/

Headline

Yahoo!'s new logo, revealed by Katrina Radic

Text

After it’s pretty neat 30 Days of Change campaign in which Yahoo! used an that we’velogo beenevery waiting alternative dayfor in order to count down to its actual new logo, the result is disappointing, to say the least.

Yahoo! unveiled its new logo at midnight last night. A new, more intense shade is now used, of desp purple whimsical ite the recognizability of the original one; the serif and letters were toned down and replaced by a typeface based on a design by Hermann Zapf m the 1950s called Optima; and a strong shadow effect was fro added, making the logo look like its place is in the digital world, only 10 years back. e reports, Yahoo As AdAg significant evolution of theCMO Kathy Savitt commented that “This represents a logo,”

279 while Yahoo SVP-brand creative Bob Stohrer

280 said the design team’s aim was to create a logo that was “sophisticated with a wink.”

Yahoo wanted the new logo, designed by an in-house team at the company, to stay true to its roots – to be whimsical, purple, and feature the exclamation point – yet embrace the evolution of its products.

Ms. Savitt: added that “You’ll notice a chisel to our logo that’s very architectural. What we’re saying is our logo is the foundation upon which our brand and products and user experience will continue to be built.”

Ahead of it’s rebrand though, Yahoo! rolled out a redesign of some of its platforms, like Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! TV, Yahoo! Movies, Yahoo! Games, Yahoo! Music, and Yahoo! Weather. The new look will soon be given to all of Yahoo!’s properties – aiming to make the experience for users more personal, consistent and engaging – but how will the designs be consistent with the new logo is yet to be seen. Maybe even the 99designs alternative Yahoo! logo winner would be a better match.

It will be interesting to see how the trending “flat” design used in the websites will be combined with the archaic looking logo. The “flat” design is an ongoing major trend, and you can read about what it means for brands in our Premium Issue – coming out this week – but until then, tell us what you think about this interesting combination. Also, check out all 30 logos from 30 Day of Change as well as a blueprint of the new logo, below:

281

Media Coverage Clip Source

Detroit Free Press (digital)

Date

5/9/2013

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://www.freep.com/article/20130905/BUSINESS07/309050075/1002/RSS02

Headline

Yahoo unveils whimsical new logo

Text

SUNNYVALE, CALIF. — Yahoo has adopted a new logo for the first time since shortly after the Internet company’s founding 18 years ago. The redesigned look unveiled late Wednesday is part of a makeover that Yahoo Inc. has been undergoing since the Sunnyvale, Calif., company hired Google executive Marissa Mayer to become Yahoo’s CEO 14 months ago. Mayer has already spruced up Yahoo’s front page, email and Flickr photo-sharing service, as well as engineered a series of acquisitions aimed at attracting more traffic on mobile devices. The shopping spree has been highlighted by Yahoo’s $1.1-billion purchase of Tumblr, an Internet blogging service where the company rolled out its new logo. The logo was shown both with purple letters and in white with a purple background

282 spelling out the word Yahoo!, with no letters touching and ending with an exclamation point. “We wanted a logo that stayed true to our roots (whimsical, purple, with an exclamation point) yet embraced the evolution of our products,” a statement on the website said. In an effort to drum up more interest in the changeover, Yahoo spent the past 30 days showing some of the proposed logos that Mayer and other executives cast aside. The revision is the first time that Yahoo has made a significant change to its logo since a few tweaks shortly after cofounders Jerry Yang and David Filo incorporated the company in 1995. Mayer’s overhaul of Yahoo has attracted a lot of attention, but so far it hasn’t provided a significant lift to the company’s revenue. Yahoo depends on Internet advertising to make most of its money, an area where the company’s growth has been anemic while more marketing dollars flow to rivals such as Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. Yahoo’s stock has climbed by nearly 80 percent, but most of that gain has been driven by the company’s 24 percent stake in China’s Alibaba Holdings Group. Investors prize Alibaba because it has emerged as one of the fastest growing companies on the Internet.

Media Coverage Clip

283 Source

Advertising Age (digital)

Date

5/9/2013

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://adage.com/article/digital/yahoo-picked-a-18-year-brand/243986/

Headline

How Yahoo Picked a New Look For An 18-Year-Old Brand

Text

Yahoo has refreshed its 18-year-old logo to match the nearly two-decade-old portal's ongoing makeover under CEO Marissa Mayer.

Capping a thirty-day campaign leading up to the official unveiling, Yahoo pinned the first major redesign of its logo since 1995 to the site's homepage early Thursday morning. But here's the punchline: the new logo was not among the 30 teased over the past month.

Created exclusively by Yahoo's in-house brand design group and product designers, the new logo retains much of its predecessor's qualities -- the purple, the exclamation point, the varying letter sizes meant to represent a yodel's sound waves -- but

modernizes it and applies a classical aesthetic

284 "This simultaneously represents a significant evolution of the logo," said Yahoo . CMO Kathy Savi who joined the company in September of last year. She outlined how characteristics tt, inherited from the old logo have been tweaked. The purple is "far richer, deeper." The exclamation point has taken on a slender, rounder shape and will animate for seconds ("half a yodel," per Ms. Savitt) after someone initially navigates to a

three Yahoo site. brand creative Bob Stohrer said the design team's aim was to create a logoSVPthat was "sophisticated with a Yahoo wink."

are not dissimilar from the Google Those

Doodles of Ms. Mayer's but not static. "It might be an exclamation riding on a Segway, or former animationsriding employer, on a pogo stick or swinging on a Tarzan vine. It's a hat tip to the tradit ional whimsy our users have loved and will continue to love," Ms. Savitt said.

But the starkest departure from Yahoo's old logo is the font. That should surprise no one who paid any attention to the ones Yahoo teased each day for the last thirty days. were criticized for being little more than font changes and less Those new than the Doodles Google semi-regularly rolls out. logos impressive re Saying What Designers A "Honestly some of them could have used a random font generator. There's not a lot

285 of discipline behind what they're doing from a design perspective. You can tell different designers are involved in the making of them," said Kevin Farnham, CEO of design firm Method. Mr. Farnham designed the new logo's predecessor alongside Geoff Katz while the two worked as art director and executive creative director, respectively, at San Francisco-based digital agency Organic.

And Luke Wroblewski -- Yahoo's former chief design architect who worked on the 2009 tweak that changed the color of Mssrs. Farnham's and Katz's design from red to purple -- concurred with Mr. Farnham that a number of the 30-day campaign's candidates are throwaways. However both Mr. Farnham and Mr. Wroblewski agreed that Yahoo's outgoing logo was ready to retire.

While Ms. Savitt received questions about a potential logo redesign soon after joining Yahoo last year from Lockerz, the impetus for the refresh came after Yahoo redesigned its home page in February. Through the company's own customer service channels and on social networks it analyzed, people pointed out the old logo didn't fit with Yahoo products' new look. Yahoo then surveyed its 12,000-plus employees, 87% of whom responded that it was time for a new logo.

The consensus may hold that a new Yahoo logo is in order, but that doesn't guarantee people will like the replacement. Mr. Wroblewski's Hot or Not-style polling app Polar solicited people on which they prefer between each day's new Yahoo logo and the old one and had tallied more than 115,000 votes as of midday Wednesday. Only one of the new logos -- Day 10 -- ousted the old one, and that new logo garnered

286

287 more votes than the second and third most-favored new logos combined (neither of which received more votes than the old logo).

"Each of the typefaces surfaced [during the campaign] represented in some way a facet of the design principles we were testing as part of the original design thesis" to redesign the logo without discarding it entirely, Ms. Savitt said.

Proprietary Font

The new typeface is one unique to Yahoo. "We always knew that we wanted to develop our own proprietary font, and that this would be intellectual property that would come from Yahoo, from our design team," Ms. Savitt said. And so they did (though Yahoo's new font doesn't yet have its own name).

Despite the design world's ongoing "flat" trend propelled by the look of Apple's new mobile operating system, Yahoo went classical for its typeface. The font would look at home on the banner of renaissance-era jouster or a British soccer, er, football club. That could invoke the larger renaissance Ms. Mayer is trying to incite at Yahoo and reinforce the company's hope to become a solid business like it once was. "When you want to create an image of stability, for something to be taken seriously as a business, you tend to go toward more classical tropes," said Hunter Tura, president of Bruce Mau Design.

Said Ms. Savitt: "You'll notice a chisel to our logo that's very architectural. What we're saying is our logo is the foundation upon which our brand and products and

288 user experience will continue to be built."

Yahoo will have to wait to see whether consumers, advertisers and shareholders get the message.

289 Media Coverage Clip Source

Fox News (digital)

Date

5/9/2013

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/09/05/yahoo-unveils-new-logo/

Headline

New Yahoo logo looks remarkably like old Yahoo logo

Text

SUNNYVALE, Calif. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Yahoo has adopted a new logo for the first time since shortly after the Internet company's founding 18 years ago. The redesigned look unveiled late Wednesday is part of a makeover that Yahoo Inc. has been undergoing since the Sunnyvale, Calif., company hired Google executive Marissa Mayer to become Yahoo's CEO 14 months ago. Mayer has already spruced up Yahoo's front page, email and Flickr photo-sharing service, as well as engineered a series of acquisitions aimed at attracting more traffic on mobile devices.

'We wanted a logo that stayed true to our roots.' - Yahoo statement

290

291 The shopping spree has been highlighted by Yahoo's $1.1 billion purchase of Tumblr, an Internet blogging service where the company rolled out its new logo. The logo was shown both with purple letters and in white with a purple background spelling out the word Yahoo!, with no letters touching and ending with an exclamation point. "We wanted a logo that stayed true to our roots (whimsical, purple, with an exclamation point) yet embraced the evolution of our products," a statement on the website said

In an effort to drum up more interest in the changeover, Yahoo spent the past 30 days showing some of the proposed logos that Mayer and other executives cast aside. The revision is the first time that Yahoo has made a significant change to its logo since a few tweaks shortly after co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo incorporated the company in 1995. Mayer's overhaul of Yahoo has attracted a lot of attention, but so far it hasn't provided a significant lift to the company's revenue. Yahoo depends on Internet advertising to make most of its money, an area where the company's growth has been anemic while more marketing dollars flow to rivals such as Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. Yahoo's stock has climbed by nearly 80 percent, but most of that gain has been driven by the company's 24 percent stake in China's Alibaba Holdings Group. Investors prize Alibaba because it has emerged as one of the fastest growing companies on the Internet.

292 Media Coverage Clip Source

Forbes (digital)

Date

5/9/2013

Tonality

Negative

URL

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/09/05/yahoo-unveils-new-logo/

Headline

Yahoo's New Logo Fails To Impress - But People Are Talking About It!

Text

After a 30-day tryout of dozens of new corporate logos that it’s now clear were never going to be chosen, Yahoo YHOO +2.29% has rolled out its final choice – to a chorus of boos.

The logo, which was custom-designed by CEO Marissa Mayer and a team of designers one weekend in summer, is intended to … well, let’s hear it straight from Mayer:

We knew we wanted a logo that reflected Yahoo – whimsical, yet sophisticated. Modern and fresh, with a nod to our history. Having a human touch, personal. Proud.

293 Other elements fell quickly into place:

We didn’t want to have any straight lines in the logo. Straight lines don’t exist in the human form and are extremely rare in nature, so the human touch in the logo is that all the lines and forms all have at least a slight curve. We preferred letters that had thicker and thinner strokes – conveying the subjective and editorial nature of some of what we do. Serifs were a big part of our old logo. It felt wrong to give them up altogether so we went for a sans serif font with “scallops” on the ends of the letters. Our existing logo felt like the iconic Yahoo yodel. We wanted to preserve that and do something playful with the OO’s. We wanted there to be a mathematical consistency to the logo, really pulling it together into one coherent mark. We toyed with lowercase and sentence case letters. But, in the end, we felt the logo was most readable when it was all uppercase, especially on small screens. Not least, she added, “Our last move was to tilt the exclamation point by 9 degrees, just to add a bit of whimsy.” But not too whimsical. Yahoo Chief Marketing Officer Kathy Savitt told Advertising Age that the font was intended to be a little less casual, befitting the seriousness of the turnaround the company is attempting: “You’ll notice a chisel to our logo that’s very architectural,” she said. “What we’re saying is our logo is the foundation upon which our brand and products and user experience will continue to be built.”

294

So you can see that Yahoo spent a heck of a lot of time carefully crafting what is, after all, the icon for what is still one of the world’s best-known brands.

Unfortunately, most people who have seen it–and, it must be said, these folks are not corporate logo experts–don’t seem to like it. A sampling:

Venture capitalist Mike Arrington: “I’m pretty sure that even 10 years from now I’ll still look at Yahoo’s new logo think “That’s one godawful fugly logo right there.” It’s a serious case of “A camel is a horse designed by committee.” It looks like a logo that somebody would have created with clipart fonts from those CDs back in the early nineties. It lacks any personality, it’s boring, it’s banal. It’s a great big bag of fail. It sucks, badly. I never thought a logo could be so singularly uninspiring.” (Tell us what you really think, Mike.)

Deep Focus ad agency CEO Ian Schafer: “I believe the font is ‘Meh Condensed.’”

Entrepreneur Derek Powazek: “No logo has ever solved a business problem, but especially not this one. ”

Skift CEO Rafat Ali, with a little irony: “I feel cheated and violated. Yahoo you made a mockery out of all of us.”

I could go on (and on), but you get the idea. Here’s the thing, though: In a few days, it probably won’t make a bit of difference either way. A logo doesn’t a business make. (Nor a yodel, though it no doubt helped–

295 and I’m glad it shows up at the end of that video.) I’m sure you could find many others that are better and many others much, much worse. My own assessment, for what little it’s worth: The new logo, which some have said bears a striking resemblance to Clinique’s, is precisely 9% less fun and 9% more businesslike. But hey, there’s still that exclamation mark! So I’ll call it more or less even.

And anyway, look what’s going on: People are talking about Yahoo. Maybe it sounds ridiculous for the CEO to be obsessing about the precise slant of an exclamation point, though if you know how Mayer works, you should not be surprised.

But above all else, people are paying attention to Yahoo again, and Marissa Mayer can take full credit for that.

296

Media Coverage Clip Source

USA Today (digital)

Date

5/9/2013

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/09/05/ceo-mayer-refashions-yahoosiconicmarquee/2768199/

Headline

CEO Mayer geeks out on Yahoo's new logo

Text

SAN FRANCISCO â&#x20AC;&#x201D; CEO Marissa Mayer has given Yahoo's logo a fashion makeover and her personal stamp reflecting the Internet pioneer's new image under her leadership.

Yahoo at midnight flicked on a new company logo to refresh its marquee, a redesign that caps months of work to update Yahoo's major Internet properties.

The big news: The exclamation point stays(!) in an otherwise spare, clean treatment. Another twist: the exclamation mark occasionally darts and dances. The purple also stays.

297

"Marissa was an integral collaborator and force in the process," says Kathy Savitt, chief marketing officer at Yahoo.

That's putting it mildly, apparently.

In a post on Yahoo's recently acquired Tumblr site titled "Geeking Out on the Logo," Mayer describes the process.

"So, one weekend this summer, I rolled up my sleeves and dove into the trenches with our logo design team: Bob Stohrer, Marc DeBartolomeis, Russ Khaydarov, and our intern Max Ma. We spent the majority of Saturday and Sunday designing the logo from start to finish, and we had a ton of fun weighing every minute detail. We knew we wanted a logo that reflected Yahoo - whimsical, yet sophisticated. Modern and fresh, with a nod to our history. Having a human touch, personal. Proud."

The geeky part kicks in with a "blueprint of what we did, calling out some of what was cool/mathematical."

Writes Mayer: "Our last move was to tilt the exclamation point by 9 degrees, just to add a bit of whimsy."

Mayer's touch has been widely seen across Yahoo since the former Google executive took the top spot and pushed for rapid-fire overhauls of its services. In recent months, Yahoo redesigned its Flickr, Weather, Sports, Mail, News and Search services. Mayer has also been on an acquisition spree of more than 20 companies.

298

Yahoo has been steeped in a turnaround in a bid to revive its business as competitors Google and Facebook gobble away at its advertising. Mayer has been a vocal advocate of a Yahoo strategy to boost its services for users. Last month, Yahoo's CEO took home some bragging rights by grabbing the crown for most U.S. Web traffic, passing her former employer Google. Yet it remains to be seen how Mayer â&#x20AC;&#x201D; whose status has elevated to glamour-geek icon in a recent Vogue spread â&#x20AC;&#x201D; can rejuvenate Yahoo's advertising business and return the company to growth. Starting with its content is just a first step of window dressing in a multiyear process to reverse Yahoo's fortunes.

"A brand logo can signal the direction for the company, but they also have to deliver on it," says Allen Adamson, managing director of branding firm Landor Associates. "The risk is that they are adjusting something cosmetically when they have a long list of strategic changes to make."

"People are hard to please. Half of the market usually either likes the old logo better or half feels the wrong winner was picked, he says. "It's a hard game to win. A lot of people will criticize them for what they do."

Over the past month, Yahoo teased users with different company logos running daily in advance of the makeover. The company had already come up with a new logo design and wasn't seeking crowd-sourced input to the design of the logo but rather wanted to see what kind of feedback it was getting externally as well as internally.

299 Yahoo got the input of over 1,000 employees in the process, along with Mayer.

In step with Yahoo's marquee makeover, the company's exclamation point will become a changing animation. "That whimsy, that whit is very much a wink and a nod to the DNA that has very much been a legacy of the Yahoo brand," says Savitt.

300 Media Coverage Clip Source

The Washington Post (digital)

Date

5/9/2013

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2013/09/05/yahoo-has-anewlogo-but-we-need-to-talk-about-the/

Headline

Yahoo! has a new logo — but we need to talk about the !

Text

Yes, Yahoo! has a new logo! I didn’t mean at least one of those “!”s! I resent Yahoo!, as I resent Fun., for taking away my choice in punctuation. In general, I view the exclamation mark as a way of indicating to the person you are e-mailing that you are not scowling in deep, permanent anger as you type. I believe fervently that unless an e-mail is liberally peppered with “!’s,” it is a sign that the recipient is severely disappointed in you or nursing some secret sorrow. The only trouble is that if you use too many you start to sound as though you are hyperventilating! Or, worse, sarcastic! True, F. Scott Fitzgerald said the ! was like laughing at your own joke. If so, he would probably hate Yahoo!, as he would hate any person or organization not

301

302 actively offering him liquor at that very moment. The new logo looks fine! I guess! Speaking of F. Scott, the “!” on the Yahoo! Web site even performs a tipsy dance before settling next to the final, slightly larger O. As chief marketing officer Kathy Savett wrote on Tumblr, “We wanted a logo that stayed true to our roots (whimsical, purple, with an exclamation point) yet embraced the evolution of our products.” It is that! I think this is “exciting news!” but really I can’t tell if I’m actually excited or not, because Yahoo! is wreaking havoc on my excitement sensors. The Yahoo! exclamation mark is the Promoted Tweet of !’s, the Disney Greeter, the perma-smiling Vanna White Look-At-This-New-Dinette-Set of !’s. It is contractually obligated to be excited about this, so its excitement has no meaning. It doesn’t count as a smile if your face always looks like that. If you sign every letter with “Most Sincerely” or “Best,” then, invariably, you are lying. You have to ration them or they lose their meaning. !’s are most enjoyable if given freely, like love, visits or compliments, and unlike massages from strangers. You like to believe that those only go where they want to go, like celebrity endorsements of beauty products. But there that lone ! is, standing beside a company whose main job, as far as I can tell, is to hide the fact that Google or Google products exist from people who came to the Internet later in life. Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer wrote on her Tumblr about the logo change: “We hadn’t updated our logo in 18 years. Our brand, as represented by the logo, has been valued at as much as ~$10 billion dollars. So, while it was time for a change, it’s not something we could do lightly.” No !’s, notice.

303

Media Coverage Clip Source

The Washington Post (digital)

Date

5/9/2013

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/09/05/heres-howyahoocame-up-with-its-new-logo/

Headline

Here’s how Yahoo came up with its new logo

Text

Wednesday night, Yahoo unveiled a fresh new design to its iconic purple logo. One of the most interesting changes serifs is the way the company abandoned its traditional out where the little feet would have gone. On Tumblr forfinish a scoopedThursday morning, CEO Marissa Mayer

explains how that idea emerged: Serifs were a big part of our old logo. It felt wrong to give them up altogether so we

went with a sans serif font with ‘scallops”

on the ends of the letters.

Mayer’s post goes into much more detail. Some additional highlights: Pantone C. Violet The color they chose is called all the letters appear to have a 3D texture to Upon close inspection,

304 them that forms a “Y” at the tops of each letter. The exclamation point is tilted 9 degrees clockwise — ”just to add a bit of whimsy,” Mayer says. An internal poll showed 87 percent of Yahoo employees were interested in a logo redesign. To get the full effect, watch the design team’s video showing how each letter was mathematically crafted according to the one before it. It’s fascinating, especially if you’re a typeface nerd.

Media Coverage Clip

305 Source

The Washington Post (digital)

Date

5/9/2013

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/yahoo-unveils-new-logo-for-firsttimesince-founding-18-years-ago/2013/09/05/b27ee1d6-15e4-11e3961cf22d3aaf19ab_story.html

Headline

Yahoo unveils new logo for first time since founding 18 years ago

Text

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Yahoo has refreshed its logo for the first time since shortly after the Internet company’s founding 18 years ago.

The new look unveiled late Wednesday is part of a makeover that Yahoo Inc. has been undergoing since the Sunnyvale, Calif., company hired Google executive Marissa Mayer to become Yahoo’s CEO 14 months ago.

Mayer has already spruced up Yahoo’s front page, email and Flickr photo-sharing service, as well as engineered a series of acquisitions aimed at attracting more traffic on mobile devices. The shopping spree has been highlighted by Yahoo’s $1.1 billion

306 purchase of Tumblr, an Internet blogging service where the company rolled out its new logo.

The redesigned logo retains some of the elements of the old one, including the company’s official color, purple. Yahoo’s familiar exclamation point, meant to punctuate a yodeling sound that has long been the company’s calling card, is still there, too, but with a twist. When visitors come to Yahoo’s front page or an app, the exclamation point dances across some of the lettering before settling at the end of the company’s name at a slight tilt of nine degrees.

“We knew we wanted a logo that reflected Yahoo — whimsical, yet sophisticated,” Mayer wrote on her Tumblr account. She hailed the redesigned looks as “modern and fresh, with a nod to our history. Having a human touch, personal. Proud.”

Mayer, 38, said she spent most of one weekend this summer figuring out what the new logo should look like with four other Yahoo colleagues: Bob Stohrer, Marc DeBartolomeis, Russ Khaydarov, and an intern, Max Ma.

In an effort to drum up more interest in the changeover, Yahoo spent the past 30 days showing some of the proposed logos that Mayer and her helpers cast aside.

The revision is the first time that Yahoo has made a significant change to its logo since a few tweaks shortly after co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo incorporated

307 the company in 1995.

Since Yahoo’s logo is so recognizable, it’s a good thing they kept the changes relatively sedate, says branding expert Laura Ries, of the Atlanta firm Ries & Ries.

“One of the worst things in the world you can do is have a logo around for two decades and then do something totally different. It’s quite unsettling for consumers,” she said. Keeping the purple and the exclamation point was a good idea, she said.

Mayer’s overhaul of Yahoo has attracted a lot of attention, but so far it hasn’t provided a significant lift to the company’s revenue. Yahoo depends on Internet advertising to make most of its money, an area where the company’s growth has been anemic while more marketing dollars flow to rivals such as Google Inc. and Facebook Inc.

A new logo is an important part of updating Yahoo, Ries said, but at the end of the day the company has to do a better job of “verbalizing what exactly Yahoo is.”

“There’s nothing wrong with improving something, putting lipstick on something, but at the end of the day is it a pig or not? That is the question,” Ries said.

Yahoo’s stock has climbed by nearly 80 percent, but most of that gain has been driven by the company’s 24 percent stake in China’s Alibaba Holdings Group. Investors prize Alibaba because it has emerged as one of the fastest growing

308 companies on the Internet.

Yahooâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stock gained 16 cents Thursday to close at $28.23.

Media Coverage Clip

309 Source

The Atlantic Wire (digital)

Date

5/9/2013

Tonality

Negative

URL

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/09/yahoo-introduces-newhipperlogo-and-s-pretty-much-it/69063/

Headline

Yahoo Introduces a New, Hipper Logo and That's Pretty Much It

Text

Yahoo, the Internet behemoth recently roused Mayer,from introduced its slumber by new CEO Marissa at midnight on Thursday, the culmination of a a new logo campaign in which -day 30the company rolled out a new, revealed off the above redesign. In a which was logo each day until it rejected conceived with the input of at leastblog fivepost people lengthy announcing the new logo— t

—Mayer walks through

most all, Adobe Illustrator," heof design philosophy. "On ashe personal level, I love brands, logos, color, design, writes. and,

Here's a minutereminder, consists of five —which, as a letters and a punctu long walkthrough of every tiny detail of the setlogo to Empire of the Sun's "Alive": ation mark—

310

So, congratulations to Yahoo's newest logo, which currently does not offer any service or functionality other than looking more out of place on a child's lunchbox than the last logo did. That's maybe a step in the right direction?

The redesigned logo gimmick isn't at-all newâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;it's how Google manages to get even a passing mention every few daysâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but it's another sign of Yahoo cribbing tactics from others or, as in the case of the $1 billion Tumblr purchase, simply buying a larger, younger user base and a slightly elevated rep as a company perpetually on the verge of reinvention.

There are some, such as Om Malik, however, who might disagree. While discussion of Yahoo has increased noticeably since Mayer's hire, use of its services has not necessarily followed suit.

311 Media Coverage Clip Source

Business Insider (digital)

Date

5/9/2013

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoos-new-logo-reaction-2013-9

Headline

The Internet Hates Yahoo's New Logo

Text

After spending a month teasing the Internet with possible redesigns, Yahoo unveiled its new logo at midnight and it is ... mostly the same. The letters are less jumbled, and Yahoo darkened its purple branding. It also kept the trademark exclamation point, as it said it would all along. The new logo has widely been viewed as a let-down on the Internet, which has spent the past month hoping the teaser designs Yahoo released (one-a-day for the past month) were merely a set-up for a more exciting swerve on day 30. The tech-press verdict on Twitter is that the logo is "boring," and some amateur designers are having a field day on Yahoo-owned Tumblr, creating lame Yahoo logos of their own.

312 Matti Leshem, founder and CEO of the marketing strategy agency Protagonist, said Yahoo missed an opportunity to create a logo reflecting the "aspirational" quality of the company under Marissa Mayer. Leshem said instead of the incremental change it ultimately made, Yahoo should have unveiled a logo that showed off the company's recent commitment to highquality user experience and more substantial news and entertainment products. Since Mayer took over in July 2012, Yahoo has acquired more than 20 companies and redesigned some of its most popular news verticals. "The new Yahoo logo has nothing going for it," Leshem told Business Insider. "Brand is meaning, and one's brand is represented by the logo. The opportunity for Yahoo to completely reinvent themselves and show the aspirational consumer the new Yahoo's potential has been sorely missed." But while the logo change itself perhaps leaves something to be desired, the staggered, 30-day rollout was successful both in getting people to talk about Yahoo and in preparing consumers for the change to come. In posts to the company blog and on Mayer's personal Tumblr, Yahoo went to great lengths to articulate the combination of "whimsy" and "evolution" the new logo was intended to evoke. Connie Birdsall, creative director of brand strategy firm Lippincott, said that while the design community may find the end-product disappointing, the 30-day lead-in was successful in promoting the company's change of direction and giving lapsed

313 users a reason to visit the site every day. Birdsall commended Yahoo for being consistent with its message and continuing the incremental change Mayer has been working toward since taking the helm. "Do I think it's the most interesting design of the century?" Birdsall asked. "No, but it's definitely a more grown-up Yahoo." "I think that day after day, we saw purple logos with not a lot of design happening, and we thought that maybe, on day 30, there would be this big 'Whoa! Superchange!'" Birdsall said. "But I think that the new logo was more about building the idea of change in to the psyche of people who use the site." Though Birdsall and Leshem disagreed over whether the logo rollout would ultimately improve Yahoo's brand, both said the change was unlikely to harm the company. Though companies like Gap and Tropicana have experienced disastrous logo changes in recent years, the two brand experts we spoke to said Yahoo would not experience a similar catastrophe because it has clearly communicated why it made the change and because it's not a physical product consumers need to locate in stores. "The worst-case scenario is that people get mad for a day and write vitriolic letters," Leshem said. "I can't see people not liking the logo and then not using the site." Now that we've asked the experts, what do you think?

314

Media Coverage Clip Source

Mashable (digital)

Date

6/9/2013

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://mashable.com/2013/09/05/yahoo-new-logo-3/

Headline

Did Marissa Mayer Pick the Wrong Yahoo Logo?

Text

Marissa Mayer may be "geeking out" over Yahoo's new logo, but early reactions suggest she is in the minority.

More than three quarters of Internet users prefer Yahoo's old logo to the new logo, according to a survey of more than 400 online respondents Thursday from Survata, a market research group. Likewise, polling app Polar found that people prefer Yahoo's old logo to the new logo 2-1, based on more than 1,000 responses.

315

That's certainly not the initial response that a brand wants when updating its logo, especially when that brand has spent the previous 30 days trying to call attention to the upcoming logo by teasing one new design every single day. But according to branding experts, the negative reaction was probably inevitable.

"It's increasingly typical for there to be a loud and often negative reaction and even more so for anyone who doesn't have a good reputation," Martin Bishop, director of brand strategy for Landor Associates, told Mashable, noting that Yahoo isn't necessarily perceived as "cutting edge" anymore.

316

"In that situation, almost anything they would have done would have been criticized." Even so, Bishop argues that Yahoo's new logo represents a "missed opportunity" for the brand to really demonstrate a "strong new identity."

"This is a little like a fresh coat of paint. It signifies that there's life inside the building, but it doesn't do more than that," he says. "This is a company that requires more than a fresh coat."

In her blog post announcing the new logo, Mayer explained that she and her team wanted a fresh look, but one that stuck to the brand's history: "We knew we wanted a logo that reflected Yahoo - whimsical, yet sophisticated. Modern and fresh, with a nod to our history. Having a human touch, personal. Proud."

Each of the logos teased during the 30-day campaign adhered to this basic premise, keeping the company's trademark purple color and exclamation point. Yet, at least one of these logos might have been better received than the actual new logo: Survata and Polar both surveyed and found that the logo teased on Day 10 was the favorite, with Polar's data showing 69% of viewers preferred it to the original logo.

317

Either way, Yahoo has accomplished at least one thing with its new logo: people are talking about it. Crimson Hexagon, a Twitter sentiment analysis firm, found that there were more than 28,000 tweets about the new logo in just the first 12 hours after it was revealed:

318 The good and the bad news for Yahoo, according to Bishop, is that all the negative and positive chatter about the logo will likely be short-lived. Ultimately, he doesn't expect this to change the perception of the brand for better or worse.

319

Media Coverage Clip Source

Quartz (digital)

Date

7/9/2013

Tonality

Negative

URL

http://qz.com/121941/see-for-yourself-how-yahoos-logo-redesign-makes-itlookmore-like-a-cosmetics-company/

Headline

Yahooâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new logo makes it look more like a cosmetics brand than an internet company

320 Text

There’s no question that CEO Marissa Mayer has people looking anew at beleaguered old-guard portal Yahoo. Enough to get pundits to stop using adjectives like “beleaguered”? The jury’s still out. But the stock price is moving in the right direction, employee morale is up—even among those who were asked to stop telecommuting—and the deft acquisition of Tumblr and a flurry of smaller startups points to a desire to swing for the fences and write a new, future-facing story for one of the internet’s original superbrands. + Somewhere along the way, Meyer clearly decided that this “new story” required a different cover: Over the last 30 days, dubbed the “30 Days of

321 Change,” Yahoo! has unveiled a different new logo every day, all representing potential replacements for its 18-year-old visual yodel. + It got the company a lot of mileage, says Julie Cottineau, founder and CEO of digital brand consultancy BrandTwist. “They showed people the visual process rather than simply presenting one big reveal.” + The parade of concepts culminated this week, with the 30th and ostensibly final iteration unveiled—a more austere and streamlined logo that, in Mayer’s own words, aimed at being “whimsical, yet sophisticated. Modern and fresh, with a nod to our history. Having a human touch, personal. Proud.” 1 Meyer says she “rolled up her sleeves and dove into the trenches” with her four-person design team to create the final look. Given her famously handson approach, it’s likely that no aspect of Yahoo!’s transformation has more fingerprints on it than this redesign. + “She wanted her identity to be left on the mark,” says Laura Ries, president of Atlanta-based marketing strategy firm Ries & Ries and author of the book Visual Hammer. “She’s given the logo her own personal touch.” + And so it is unfortunate that this may be Meyer’s first big public failure. +

322 Even before the unveiling of the winning design, Larry Popelka of Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s Management Blog suggested that the project “may be the biggest mistake in Marissa Mayer’s nascent career as chief executive officer”—since logo designs are far less likely to increase business than “make CEOs look silly.” + Now that Yahoo!’s new hotness is out, the reactions seem to confirm Popelka’s warning. TechCrunch founder and CrunchFund principal Mike Arrington called it “godawful,” “boring, “banal,” and “fugly”—“a horse designed by committee” that “looks like a logo that someone would have created with clipart fonts from those CDs back in the early ’90s.” Skift CEO Rafat Ali snarked that the logo made him feel “cheated and violated.” Perhaps most damning was a tweet from serial entrepreneur Derek Pozawek, who noted that “It looks like a gravestone. It probably is.” + That’s not the only thing that the chiseled-looking, faintly curved semi-serif logo resembles. As a follower of AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher pointed out on her Twitter feed, the typeface (apparently adapted from the well-known face Optima) has an uncanny resemblance to the font used by cosmetics brand Clinique. + And therein lies a major problem for Yahoo. If it were just Clinique, the resemblance might be passed off as an offhand coincidence. A wider scan

323

readily shows just how common the use of Optima-esque fonts is in the broader beauty and personal care category, with global brands ranging from Revlon, Estée Lauder, CoverGirl, Olay and Redken all using similar-looking variations of the face. +

BrandTwist’s Cottineau describes the aesthetic Meyer seems to have been seeking as “sleek,” “modern” and “premium”—but these aren’t adjectives that are naturally associated with Yahoo’s brand essence, which, Cottineau notes, is better described as “friendly, energetic and accessible.” + And that creates a jarring sense of disconnect not just between Yahoo’s past and its intended future, but also between Yahoo and its digital peers and rivals. + Visual Hammer’s Laura Ries notes that one of the primary functions of a logo

324 is to “identify a brand in a crowd.” But what if a logo divorces a brand from its crowd entirely? + As this comparison shows, other than a handful of niche e-commerce startups, such as daily deals site Gilt Groupe, most online brands are marked by a sensibility that blends visual whimsy and abstract, “flat” design. The combination underscores both the disruptive and unconventional character of the Internet at large and the brands’ desire for broad-based, boundary-free appeal. +

Cosmetics and personal care brands, meanwhile, tend to invoke elitism, elegance and heritage; even if they’re widely available, they play to aspirations for products that are niche-focused, costly and tied to a long and illustrious legacy. +

325

326 These aren’t exactly the image Yahoo needs to convey to consumers, given that it’s perhaps the most “mass” of mass Internet brands, with a business largely dependent on free content and—if anything—is trying to get its users to think forward and not back. 1 Though it’s tempting to see this misstep as a minor one, Ries points out that a logo is critically important for an Internet brand since they have no physical real-world presence. “Brands like Yahoo!, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter are basically identified by visuals alone,” she says. “A good logo communicates an idea, but you have to know what you want to communicate. And Yahoo has not figured that out.”

1 This has ominous implications for Mayer’s larger transformation campaign. As brand consultant and former Ant Hill principal Kim Brater notes, the key for a successful rebranding is whether the new identity reflects a true change of vision. “What is Yahoo’s essence? What is their brand promise?—I don’t know. Does their internal team know?” she asks. “Companies with crappy logos can still deliver on their promise, while those that spend millions on redesign can still fail. The logo shift for Yahoo—I’m not sure it was essential for brand delivery at this point.” 1 In other words, if Yahoo’s facelift is as “cosmetic” as it appears, Mayer’s apparent

327 run of success could be no more than skin deep.

328

Media Coverage Clip Source

The Verge (digital)

Date

11/9/2013

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/11/4719548/yahoos-marissa-mayer

Headline

Marissa Mayer defends new logo as Yahoo hits 800 million monthly users

Text

Yahoo's new logo has plenty of detractors, butCEO behind it. "IMayer like the way the logo Marissa is standing turned out, and I like the way that we did it," Mayer told interviewer Michael Arrington today at TechCrunch Disrupt. Mayer said they approached the logo r on outside consultants and instead built it in-

Mayer didn't discuss specifics of the design, which is basednot on the Optima font edesign asnew a startup would, resolving to spend money and has drawn howls of protests entrepreneurial," Mayer said. "Our attitude is to be house. really scrappy. We kept it in house, we didn't spend millions of dollars doi a very authentic place." from typographers. "We need to be really

ng it. We did it in a way that came from

329 "OUR ATTITUDE IS TO BE REALLY SCRAPPY."

Mayer announced on stage that Yahoo now has 800 million monthly active users, including 350 million monthly users on the company's mobile apps. That does not include traffic to Tumblr, which the company acquired for $1.1 billion earlier this year. Asked what she was doing to fight back against the government pursuit of user data, Mayer said Yahoo has long pushed back against broad requests. But she said the company is constrained by the fact that even discussing many of the requests is illegal. "Releasing classified information is treason, which generally lands you incarcerated," she said. "We think it makes more sense in terms of scrutinizing requests, analyzing them, doing our best to protect our users. It makes sense for us to work within the system." Yahoo and Facebook filed suit against the government Monday in an effort to force more transparency. Mayer recently completed her first year at the venerable internet giant, where she is in the midst of trying to revitalize a company that has hundreds of millions of users but declining revenues. The company has recently seen a surge in traffic to its sites, and released well received mobile apps, but has yet to translate those efforts into higher earnings. Mayer said she is focused on turning the company around. "My ultimate goal is to get the company growing again," she said.

330

Media Coverage Clip Source

The Huffington Post (digital)

Date

11/9/2013

Tonality

Neutral

URL

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/11/marissa-mayeryahoologo_n_3909836.html

Headline

Marissa Mayer Defends Yahoo Logo

Text

SAN FRANCISCO -- Marissa Mayer is standing by the new -- and much maligned -Yahoo logo that was unveiled

last week.

Speaking onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt SF,

the San Francisco technology

conference that ends on Wednesday, Yahoo's CEO said that she "like[s] the way logo turned out, and I like the way we did entr logo -- we kept it inthe it."

"To me, we really pride ourselves at Yahoo as being the world's largest startup," she continued. "We're a big and established company. We need to be really epreneurial and our attitude is to be really scrappy, and the way that we did the house, we didn't have someone, you know, as an external firm or

331 consulting firm, we didn't spend millions of dollars doing it. We did it in a way that came from a very authentic place"

Mayer's answer was in response to a question from Michael Arrington, the founder and former co-editor of TechCrunch, who asked a rather blunt question about the new branding: "What the f*ck happened here?"

After the crowd of journalists, entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley insiders stopped laughing, and Mayer said she liked the redesign, the 38-year-old CEO shifted the focus from the logo to Yahoo's products, many of which have been redesigned in the 14 months she's been in charge.

"For us, what the brand is really about is the products," she said. "We're happy with the logo, but for us the focus is really on the product."

Arrington followed up by asking Mayer how long it would be until Yahoo changed the logo, and Mayer replied that they'll make small changes over time.

Mayer also said that 87 percent of Yahoo employees didn't like the old logo. She was hearing from customers that while they loved the newly redesigned products, the old logo looked "clunky," Mayer said.

Mayer came on as CEO last summer and has overseen the redesign of many of the company's products, including its homepage, weather app and Flickr. She has also made a number of high-profile acquisitions, including Tumblr and Summly.

332 The logo that Yahoo unveiled last week is the first redesign in 18 years. Max Ma, an intern on the design team who worked on the new logo, posted an alternate version on his website, and many thought it would have made a better choice than the one Yahoo settled on.

TechCrunch is owned by AOL, which also owns The Huffington Post.

333

Appendix F

334

335

336

337

338

339 Appendix G And here is a photo that Brad Ehney tweeted of the alternative logo that has since been pulled from Ma's website:

Once the other logo went public, many people went to Twitter to express their preference for the unchosen design:

340

341

342

Appendix H Media Tier List1 No.

Digital

Issue 1:

Issue 2: Mergers &

Issue 3:

No. of unique visitors per month

Newspaper

New

Acquisitions

Rebranding

35.5 million

31.3 million

CEO

The New York Times

The Wall Street Journal

USA Today

26.3 million

The Washington

18.8 million

12.5 million

Post

The Guardian US

This list is not exhaustive, only selected articles used for content analysis are reflected here.

343

The Business

10 million

3.3 million

Journals

Detroit Free Press

Total:

No.

Digital Magazine

Issue

Issue 2: Mergers &

Issue 3:

1:New

Acquisitions

Rebranding

No. of unique visitors per month

CEO

Time

50 million

Bloomberg Businessweek

26 million

Wired Magazine

19 million

Forbes

17 million

344

The New Yorker

10.7 million

Inc. Magazine

4.9 million

Advertising Age

56 000

Branding Magazine

50 000

Ad Week

33 000

Total:

No.

News Websites

Issue 1:

Issue 2: Mergers &

Issue 3:

New CEO

Acquisitions

Rebranding

No. of unique visitors per month

ABC News

83 million

CNN News

61 million

345

The Huffington

36.6 million

Fox News

27.3 million

Reuters

24 million

Mashable

20 million

PC World

10 million

CNBC

8.6 million

Business

8 million

Post

Insider

10.

GigaOM

5.5 million

11.

The Atlantic

5.1 million

5 million

Wire

12.

Quartz

346

13.

TechCrunch

4 million

14.

VentureBeat

3.9 million

15.

The Verge

3.1 million

3 million

1.24 million

Unknown

16. Talking Points Memo

17.

All Things Digital

18. Marketing Land

Total: