yahoo

Yahoo beats Google in customer satisfaction survey

Good news for Yahoo: a new survey finds that customers are more satisfied with Yahoo than the other search engines and portals.

According to the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index, Yahoo's score in the index rose 3.9 percent over the past year to 79 while Google's score fell 3.7 percent to 78.

But it's hard to really get a read on things because the survey combines two different categories: search engines and portals. No question, Google by far leads the pack when it comes to search and it is not a portal. … Read more

Yahoo prez puts money where her mouth is

All too often execs are exercising options and making money by getting rid of shares of their company stock. But Yahoo President Sue Decker is bucking that trend.

Decker paid about $1.1 million to buy roughly 47,000 shares of Yahoo stock this week in a sign that she thinks the company's future is bright.

Her purchases, which began a day after the stock hit a three-year low of $22.44 on Monday, were revealed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Meanwhile, the man who was at the helm of Yahoo for the … Read more

Google News rolling out expert user comments

Google News is getting an interesting feature this week, and by interesting I mean it's downright peculiar. Users of the U.S. version of Google News will now be able to comment on a story, that is assuming they're somehow involved in it. The process is not for everyone, and in fact requires a lengthy verification process of sending off your comment and credentials to a special Google e-mail address, and later verifying your identity via domain name and an e-mail follow-up from Google staff. If you pass the test, your comment will show up alongside the article.… Read more

Lawmaker orders probe of Yahoo China event

The chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee has ordered an investigation into Yahoo's role in the arrest of a Chinese Internet journalist serving a 10-year sentence for allegedly distributing state secrets in e-mail, according to the Associated Press.

Shi Tao was arrested in 2004 by Chinese officials after Yahoo cooperated with a request to provide information about the Yahoo Mail customer. At a hearing last year, Yahoo general counsel Michael Callahan said that Yahoo did not know what the nature of the investigation of Shi was when it handed over the information to the Chinese government. … Read more

Mundu's got a slick, multiclient IM for iPhone

Amid the growing group of instant-messaging solutions for the IM-less iPhone, Mundu (a Webware 100 winner) has just released a new contender that handles four of the most popular chatting protocols with a fantastic interface. If you're an iPhone user, just navigate your Safari browser to http://iphone.mundu.com, which takes you to a log-in screen with access to your AIM, Yahoo, MSN, .Mac, and Google Talk accounts. You can log into all of them simultaneously, although there's no master password system like you get with Meebo.

Each client gets its own buddy list, and any additional … Read more

Yahoo Maps can't spell

OK. This post may be very San Francisco-centric. But I expect more from Yahoo Maps than the misspelling of a legendary city district.

Haight Ashbury may have a Ben & Jerry's ice cream shop and an increasing number of overpriced shoe stores now, but it was ground zero for a cultural movement in the 1960s that still greatly influences sex, drugs, and rock and roll 40 years later.

According to Yahoo Maps, though, it's spelled "Height Ashbury."

Interestingly, the man at the helm of Yahoo, co-founder Jerry Yang, was born in 1968, a year after the … Read more

Yahoo adds first woman director to board

Yahoo has named telecom executive Maggie Wilderotter, CEO of Citizens Communications, to its board of directors.

Wilderotter, who oversees the second largest U.S. local exchange telephone company, brings more than her business acumen to the table. Her career has also included stints as a Microsoft executive handling customer and partner efforts for the software giant's government and education markets. She also previously served as CEO of Wink Communications.

Wilderotter brings gender diversity to Yahoo's previously all-male board of directors.

It's been a long time coming. Wilderotter, whose addition expands Yahoo's board to 11 directors, is … Read more

Yahoo exec to join AdBrite

Paul Levine, who headed up Yahoo Local, is leaving the company to join Internet ad marketplace AdBrite, Yahoo said.

Jennifer Dulski, previously of Yahoo Autos, will oversee Local Markets and Commerce, and Scott Regan will assume the role of acting lead of Yahoo Local/Maps.

"Under Paul's leadership, Yahoo Local has delivered great value to its users and advertisers and Paul has been working on the business since before Yahoo Local was even launched in 2004," Yahoo said in a statement. "Since then, the audience has grown to 15 million monthly unique users and nearly 30 … Read more

Yahoo: 13 rules for making your web pages faster

Yahoo's Exceptional Performance team has put together a list of "13 rules for making web pages fast" and posted it on Yahoo's developer network. The list, which includes "Make fewer HTTP requests," "Use a content delivery network," and "Avoid redirects," should really help webmasters figure out what is slowing their site down.

As if that wasn't enough, the team just released a Firefox add-on which integrates on top of Firebug, a web development tool. This add-on will analyze any web page to check for how they comply with the … Read more