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After Yahoo announced that Max Levchin was appointed to its board, the PayPal co-founder and Silicon Valley all-star took to his blog to explain his reasoning for accepting the position.

According to Levchin, his decision centered on three areas -- personal, business, and sentimental. On the personal side, he said that he has for a long time "respected Marissa [Mayer's] talent and tenacity," adding that her decision to take over Yahoo "was a very ballsy move, and when she asked for my help, I was excited about working with her."

On the business side, Levchin … Read more

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is looking at buying Summly, an app created by boy genius Nick D'Aloisio to summarize news articles, according to a report from All Things D.

Mayer met with the teenage D'Aloisio in recent weeks, unnamed sources told All Things D. The app uses an algorithm to pull out relevant information from news articles and turns them into neat paragraphs that fit on an iPhone screen, while also linking to the full article.

CNET has contacted both Yahoo and Summly for comment, and we'll update if we hear back.

Summly would be an attractive … Read more

Yahoo has just injected its board with a whole lot of Silicon Valley firepower by adding PayPal cofounder Max Levchin.

Also serving as the chairman of boards at Kaggle and Yelp and as a director at Evernote, Levchin is a Silicon Valley all-star. He was PayPal's CTO until eBay bought the payment services company, after which he started the social media company Slide. Levchin sold Slide to Google in 2010, and is now leading HVF, a company that focuses on big data.

His appointment was coupled with the departure of two board members, Weather Channel CEO David Kenny and … Read more

Flickr released an overhauled iPhone app today, capping a year of effort to reclaim its lost glory with software that it believes will become central rather than peripheral to using the photo-sharing site.

The new app is designed to show off individual photos better, to ease sign-up for new users, to speed photo browsing, and to improve discovery. Better smartphone support was critical, given how much activity has moved to mobile apps.

"Engagement to a high percentage is happening on mobile," said Markus Spiering, head of the Flickr product at Yahoo. "It really brings Flickr into the … Read more

Yahoo Mail just got a facelift.

The longstanding e-mail service underwent a revamp to focus on faster access to e-mail, fewer distractions, and an easier-to-use interface. Yahoo also worked to keep the look consistent throughout a variety of platforms, whether it's on the Internet, Windows 8, iPhone, or Android. The changes were announced today by CEO Marissa Mayer on Yahoo's blog.

Regardless of Yahoo's broader struggles, its e-mail service remains a popular one and a default address for many individuals. As a result, it continues to be a crucial element to sustaining traffic.

"Since it's … Read more

Yahoo and the NBC Sports Group announced a content and promotion partnership this evening that combines the Web company's sports reporting with NBC's television presence and digital resources.

The alliance will include original video content that will appear on both Yahoo Sports and NBCSports.com, live streams of events such as "Sunday Night Football," and adoption of Yahoo Sports' fantasy platform as the exclusive game provider for NBC Sports' news and information site Rotoworld.

Financial details of the deal were not revealed. The two will maintain separate Web sites and newsrooms but will collaborate on big … Read more

Rolling Stones fans may find they can get what they want after all, namely a live stream of the group's upcoming 50th anniversary concert.

Streamed by Yahoo and entertainment company WWE, the pay-per-view special will be shown on Saturday, December 15, at 6 p.m. PT via Yahoo Music. Dubbed "One More Shot: The Rolling Stones Live," the concert will be the latest in a series of events marking this year's 50th anniversary of the group's debut.

Fans who tune in to the stream at 5:30 p.m. can catch a special called "… Read more

While Google+ has been a relatively quiet corner of the Web, the site has definitely attracted some close-knit groups. Photographers, in particular, have gravitated to the site, finding it an effective way to share their work with a large, receptive audience.

Now Google is introducing a feature that the company hopes will spur more groups to make Google+ their social network of choice. Google+ Communities, which will integrate group functions into the social network, are rolling out across the site today.

"We see Google+ Communities as the next logical step for groups of people that have already formed on … Read more

After winning a $2.7 billion preliminary judgment against Yahoo, a plaintiff in a Mexico City civil court case said the matter can be settled for less than the court's judgment.

The judgment handed down Friday by the 49th Civil Court of the Federal District of Mexico City involved allegations that Yahoo was in breach of contract related to a yellow-pages listing service. The lawsuit was brought by Worldwide Directories and by Ideas Interactivas.

However, a man who is a partner in both firms tells Reuters that he and his partners would be willing to consider a settlement offer … Read more