Yahoo to Be Default Firefox Search Engine on Ubuntu
Rick Spencer of Canonical, which distributes the Ubuntu version of Linux, revealed that Canonical has formed a revenue-sharing deal with Yahoo, which will see Yahoo become the default search engine in the Mozilla Firefox browser in the upcoming 10.04 version (aka “Lucid Lynx”) of the operating system.
Spencer shared the information via a public mailing list (hat tip to Ars Technica), where he said:
Note that this won’t in any way effect the ability of a user to choose and use the search provider of their choice. It’s literally 2 easily discoverable clicks to change this setting, a simple matter of switching to that search provider in the chrome by clicking on the icon and choosing the desired provider. Note also that Yahoo! does not share any personally identifiable or usage information.
…
I am pursuing this change because Canonical has negotiated a revenue sharing deal with Yahoo! and this revenue will help Canonical to provide developers and resources to continue the open development of Ubuntu and the Ubuntu Platform. This change will help provide these resources as well as continuing to respect our user’s default search across Firefox.
The move is an interesting one for both Canonical and Yahoo. Yahoo needs to do whatever it can to gain search market share, and Ubuntu is a popular version of Linux.
“Canonical is unusual among major commercial Linux distributors in the sense that it doesn’t sell an ‘enterprise’ or ‘pro’ version of its software,” notes Ars Technica author Ryan Paul. “In an effort to make this approach sustainable, Canonical is experimenting with a number of different business models, including commercial support for end users, subscription-based Web services, and integration support for hardware makers. In the announcement about the search engine change, Spencer says that Canonical’s partnership with Yahoo will help to fund the ongoing development of the distribution.”
Terms of the deal between Canoncial and Yahoo were not made available. Meanwhile, the search and advertising deal between Microsoft and Yahoo is still pending. The effects of that on Yahoo’s market share remain to be seen.
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Yahoo Calls On Grad Students To Improve Internet
Yahoo said today it is holding its second annual Key Scientific Challenges Program, which is open globally to any graduate student enrolled in a PhD program at an accredited institution.
The Key Scientific Challenges Program focuses on a number of issues, from developing algorithms that make information more personally relevant, to finding insights about online advertising and experimenting with new sociological models for how people engage with the web.
“Yahoo! and the entire online industry face challenges that are increasingly complex and require an interdisciplinary approach to solve,” said Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo! Labs.
“The Key Scientific Challenges Program provides graduate students an unmatched environment that brings together social scientists, economists, computer scientists, and statisticians to collaborate in an unprecedented way. The students get the benefit of testing their research ideas in the real world, and Yahoo! gains new perspectives on the technical problems core to improving the Internet.”
Winners of the Key Scientific Challenges Program will receive:
- $5,000 in unrestricted seed funding for lab materials, travel to academic conferences, professional society memberships, and other resources to drive their research.
- Exclusive access to selected global-scale Yahoo! datasets.
- Personal mentoring and collaboration with Yahoo!’s world-class research scientists.
- An invitation to present their work at the Key Scientific Challenges Graduate Student Summit, to be held in September 2010 at Yahoo! headquarters in Sunnyvale, California.
Applications for the program must be submitted by midnight PST on March 5, 2010. Winners will be announced in the spring.
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Yahoo Halts Search For International Boss
Most estimates agree that there are almost 7 billion human beings on this planet, and even the biggest misanthropes must admit that a few of them are smart and capable. Yahoo apparently wasn’t able to encounter any keepers, however, as it’s stopped searching for someone to lead the company’s international division.
This position opened up in February of 2009 as Carol Bartz really began to reshape operations at Yahoo. Now, as reported by John Letzing, Bartz said during yesterday’s earnings call, “I didn’t find anyone who was up to our needs.”
Some critics might take this as an admission of defeat; it seems a bit ridiculous that a year-long hunt didn’t turn up anything. Or perhaps even scary, if Yahoo located some qualified candidates, but said candidates didn’t want to work for the company.
Still, the timing of Bartz’s announcement goes a long ways towards making things look better. Yahoo’s Q4 report was pretty good, after all – its stock rose in after-hours trading and is still headed up this morning – so this position appears to be less than critical.
When everything’s said and done, the new plan is for three Yahoo executives (Hilary Schneider, Rose Tsou, and Rich Riley) representing the Americas, Asia, and EMEA to report directly to Bartz.
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Yahoo’s Q4 Financial Results Draw Smiles
Yahoo’s fourth quarter earnings report has been released, and it seems that people who were preparing for some sort of drastic response – whether it would’ve involved either pitchforks or confetti – will have to wait for another day. Although the confetti folks might win out, as Yahoo did all right, more or less in line with estimates.
Yahoo reported $1.26 billion in net revenue and earnings of 11 cents per share, versus predictions of $1.23 billion and 11 cents per share. That’s a pretty solid performance, all in all.
What’s more, the outlook for the next quarter is bright, too, with Carol Bartz stating, “Our business has positive momentum and we feel good as we head into 2010. We’re pleased that the midpoint of our Q1 revenue outlook marks the first quarter of year-over-year growth in six quarters.”
And in case you were wondering, Yahoo still plans on sealing its deal with Microsoft sometime early this year.
Then here’s one final sign that Yahoo satisfied everyone on the financial front today: its stock is up. Yahoo shares have risen 1.88 percent so far in after-hours trading.
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Bing Makes Out Well In Search Spend Report
A little bit of data from the Efficient Frontier Q4 2009 Search Engine Performance Report has been made available, and it’s completely un-shocking in that it shows search marketers are still more than happy to spend their money with Google. The interesting thing, though, is that Bing seems to have gained a little ground on the search giant.
To give credit where it’s due: Nathania Johnson is the one who got an early look at Efficient Frontier’s report (which is supposed to be released tomorrow). It’s thanks to her, then, that we know Google’s market share in terms of search advertising spending fell 1.0 percent on a year-over-year basis to 74.5 percent.
Meanwhile, Yahoo’s share stayed steady (at 20.4 percent), and Bing’s increased by 1.0 percent (to 5.1 percent).
From Microsoft’s perspective, that represents a move in the right direction, at least. And it’s interesting, too, that Bing managed to draw revenue away from Google instead of its partner-to-be in Sunnyvale.
As for the future, Johnson wrote, “Bing is expected to grow 30% in 2010, giving them a 6-7% share of paid clicks.” The outlook for the whole industry seems fairly bright, too, given that she stated, “SEM spend will grow 15-20% in 2010.”
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