Users will be able to identify if Bing is powering their search results with a “Powered by Bing” graphic on the bottom of the search pages.

No timeline has been struck for other international markets, but the full transition is said to be completed in 2012.

However, one country in particular that won’t be signing up will be Japan, as it has gone to Google in order to power its search – but that is pending any legal challenges and regulatory approval.

Image from JVManna/Flickr.

Hotmail is going to get some improvements soon as part of a major overhaul of Windows Live (dubbed Wave 4), including some brand new features in an attempt to compete better with rivals Yahoo and Google.

A new feature is the ability to share photos and documents using web applications right in the email. Services like SmugMug, Flickr, YouTube and Hulu will be able to be seen with one click without opening to a new tab or window, while document editing is integrated with Office Web Apps on SkyDrive, similar to Google’s Gmail and Docs arrangement.

Cleaning up is also a breeze with the “sweep” option, cleaning up clutter with simple clicks without having complex rules managing your mail, while there will be filters to sort from unread mail to mail from groups and contacts. Also, following on from Gmail, all emails will be grouped together in a  IM conversation-style, while the mailbox has returned to a two-column design, not the three column design that is active.

According to the Windows Blog, other changes include how contacts and subfolders are managed, the storage on each account, multiple e-mail accounts, full-session SSL and new account protection features.

Also new is the integration of Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, allowing phones like the iPhone to push emails, calendar and contacts to phones. However, only few phones allow multiple connections – like the Pre – but many Windows Phone 7 phones should be supporting it as well.

Mobile users will also see a revamped mobile site, which will be more graphical and user friendly to current phones, including the iPhone, including have a quick preview of the message by hitting an arrow. HTML messages will also be seen, instead of reading it from text. Essentially, what you get on the desktop will be on the mobile site.

Images can be seen below:

Sounds similar to AOL? Hmm.

“Yahoo is on the verge of hiring more traditional journalists as it plans to aggressively beef up original content for its top verticals, including news, business and entertainment,” Mike Shields wrote.

“That identity has already begun taking shape as Yahoo has hired a handful of journalism veterans to expand on Yahoo News, including former WashingtonPost.com editor Russ Walker, the site’s new politics editor; Andrew Golis of Talking Points Memo, who is assembling a team of news-hungry bloggers; and ABC News veteran Anna Robertson, now Yahoo News’ director of multimedia and social media.”

Jimmy Pitaro, the Vice President of its Media division, said that this move is to add more “human editorial” talent to its Entertainment, Finance and Lifestyle sites after they heavily rely on aggregated content from numerous sources.

But is it worth investing after Yahoo has tried a few times to become an editorial content site? According to ZDNet, it even had a large business news group that had its own TV studio that provided news during Wall Street’s trading hours, before dumping the idea when the bubble burst. Then it reappeared in 2005, even hiring a person to run the division, before the 2008 layoffs that streamlined operations, but also cut down a lot of people working on its content sites.

However, the main important question should be: does Yahoo have enough money to support editorial content? It might, after new CEO Carol Bartz’s cuts, closures and outsourcing search to Microsoft’s Bing.

Only time will tell, but users are set to see the change later in the winter (or summer in the US), it will be using its own team to cover politics, according to Media Week.

A spokeswoman from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Vietnam has “specific regulations against computer viruses, harmful software and for ensuring information security and secrecy.”

Google said on March 30 that it had found that Vietnamese computers around the world were infected by malware after downloading software that would allow Vietnamese characters to work with a standard keyboard. While the software was not sophisticated, it has been used, according to Neel Mehta from Google’s Security Team, for damaging purposes.

“These infected machines have been used both to spy on their owners as well as participate in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against blogs containing messages of political dissent,” Mehta wrote in a blog post.

“Specifically, these attacks have tried to squelch opposition to bauxite mining efforts in Vietnam, an important and emotionally charged issue in the country.”

McAfee also posted a blog post (also dated in March 30) that the people behind this latest attack “may have political motivations and may have some allegiance to the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.” McAfee also said that they believe the attacks are a separate incident than the attacks by China that were revealed in January under the title of Operation Aurora.

In response, Google tried to convince the Chinese government to uncensor its results, before moving to Hong Kong in late March – making good on its announcement not to follow the culture of censorship in the country. Yahoo and Microsoft have decided to stay in mainland China.

Previously, searches for Falun Gong and the Taiwanese independence were controversial topics that were often censored by localised versions. Like Google, Bing China and Yahoo China opt in a similar practise.

China has quickly responded, via the Xinhua state-run News Agency, by saying the decision is “wrong”.

“We’re uncompromisingly opposed to the politicization of commercial issues, and express our discontent and indignation to Google for its unreasonable accusations and conduct,” an unnamed official who is said to be part of the State Council Information Office told Xinhua.

“Google has violated its written promise it made when entering the Chinese market.”

How it manages to do this is due in part of an agreement with the British regarding the handing over of Hong Kong and China’s “One Country, Two Systems” policy, where Hong Kong remains democratic despite the mainland being a communist country. Censorship in the mainland do not affect Hong Kong, and social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook are still accessible to people living in Hong Kong.

According to the Los Angeles Times, while Chinese users are likely to see the pages, clicking on the links are a different matter entirely.

It is likely that Google.cn, because of its redirect to the Hong Kong service, will be banned from China.

Under the terms of the agreement, it will also acquire all Zimbra intellectual property and technology, and will grant Yahoo a license to continue using the technology on its Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Calendar software.

VMware will optimise the products to work on vSphere-based cloud infrastructures, alongside optimising similar tools provided by Microsoft and IBM.

“Zimbra is a great example of the type of scalable ‘cloud era’ solutions that can span smaller, on-premise implementations to the cloud. It will be a building block in an expanding portfolio of solutions that can be offered as a virtual appliance or by a cloud service provider,” Brian Byun, Vice President and General Manager of Cloud Services, said.

“We are excited to welcome the Zimbra team and community to the VMware family.”

This was long rumoured, especially when news of the deal broke on WSJ’s All Things D blog; as Yahoo looked to slim down its portfolio – including offloading search to Bing and closing Geocities – and concentrate on the successful acquisitions and sites after when CEO Carol Bartz took over from Jerry Yang.

Second was the Twilight Saga, mainly helped by teenage girls; with the WWE coming in third place, Megan Fox in fourth, Britney Spears taking fifth place, and Naruto back on the list (again) in sixth position – though, I still don’t get why people like the series. Seventh position goes to American Idol, thanks to fan-favourite Adam Lambert; while Kim Kardashian coming in eighth place, NASCAR in ninth and the free MMORPG Runescape coming in tenth place.

For those wanting to know what were the top gadgets this year according to their search results; the top five places were held by (in order from fifth to first place) the PlayStation 3, the iPod touch, the PSP 3000, Nintendo Wii and the iPhone.

You can find more lists on their dedicated website.

The report, from the Iranian Students Solidarity blog (in Farsi) and later repeated on ZDNet by Richard Koman, mentions that Yahoo sent a representative in order to lift the blocks during the protests. While it was not the only website blocked or severely limited, like Google and social networking sites Facebook and Twitter, none of the aforementioned sites had contacted the government.

As part of the agreement, Yahoo was asked to provide 200,000 email addresses and names of Iranians using its mail and were writing blogs, though it has not been mentioned if it was targeted at its Yahoo! 360 blog service or external services like WordPress and Blogspot. The Iranian government asked for all of the emails of all Iranians on Yahoo, but relented after Yahoo said that it would be a time-consuming process as there were more than 20 million accounts.

Here’s an excerpt of what they wrote (translated in English, via ZDNet):

On 27th of Shahrivar (Day of Qods) when Iranians demonstrated again on the streets, the Iranian authorities in addition to blocking many internet sites, all over Iran, blocked or severely limited access to Yahoo and Google. Google did not react and its problem was resolved with 48 hours, but Yahoo sent a representative to Iran’s telecommunications ministry, to resolve the issue.

During the meeting with Iranian Internet authorities and telecommunications authorities, Yahoo representatives were asked to provide Iranian authorities with the names (data) on all Iranian Internet account holders in exchange for removing the block/filter on the Yahoo website.

The Yahoo representative subsequently expressed that currently there were more than 20 million email accounts and providing such a list will be a very time-consuming process. To which the IRGC (Islamic Republic Guardian Council) replied by asking the representative to provide email accounts of those individuals who have Yahoo accounts and are publishing blogs.

Apparently this made Yahoo’s task a bit easier and the Yahoo representative agreed to provide such a list within a matter of hours. Upon the receipt of such a list, which included approximately 200,000 emails, by the Iranian authorities, the regime immediately unblocked access to the Yahoo.com website. The list went back as far as five years and included active and inactive accounts and blogs.

Yahoo Iran is not actually managed by the corporation in the US, but by Yahoo Corporation in Malaysia, according to the Iranian Students Solidarity blog. Malaysia, like Iran, is a predominantly Muslim country. Yahoo has said that it does not have any operations in Malaysia.

However, it should be noted that this may not actually be true. As noted by SiliconANGLE, it does not pass the “Smell Test”, where if it sounds “far too juicy to pass up, it’s generally too good to be true.” and that selecting 200,000 users out of a possible 20 million is a little dubious, and while it is not entirely impossible, it is unlikely.

UPDATE: ZDNet has now retracted the story, and has since apologised to Yahoo for not having their input for the story. In a separate blog posting, Yahoo wrote:

The allegations in the story are false. Neither Yahoo! nor any Yahoo! representative has met with or communicated with Iranian officials regarding the matters referenced in the article, and Yahoo! has not disclosed user data to the Iranian government. The ZDnet article makes other inaccurate assertions. We don’t have a Yahoo! Iran website, as the article suggests. We don’t have employees in Iran either. And while we have a website targeted at users in Malaysia, we don’t have operations or officials there, also wrongly asserted in the article.

Its Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) provides email, contacts, calendar, search, VoIP and document collaboration and authoring tools to its clients, and can be installed in-house like Exchange, or using server hosted by Yahoo.

Yahoo has used its technology to power its new web-based Mail and Calendar tools, with the interfaces strikingly similar.

According to All Things D, potential buyers include Comcast and Google – both own services that would integrate nicely with Zimbra; with Comcast having online address book and social network Plaxo, while Google has its Google Apps service, which includes its popular GMail service, for business customers. Comcast is also a Zimbra user.

The price, however, may be lower than what Yahoo originally paid for the company.

But its not only Zimbra on the chopping block; other business units, including its personals and online classifieds websites, are set to face the axe. The move is set to refocus the company to be primarily a consumer company, with a new and pricey marketing campaign to promote this new aim.

Yahoo’s assets have been slowly dwindling as it closed down its blogging website Yahoo! 360, video editing and hosting site Jumpcut and free web hosting service GeoCities this year, among others in the past three years including its Auctions and Photos websites (Yahoo! Photos was replaced with Flickr). As well, it has announced it will no longer be part of the search business, as it will give its business to Microsoft and its Bing search engine.

After speculation of the future of Microsoft and Yahoo talks, both parties have announced that they have forged a new agreement that will see Microsoft’s new Bing search engine powering Yahoo, while Microsoft will hand off search advertising to Yahoo.

The new deal, which is a huge coup for both parties, will allow Yahoo and Microsoft to compete with Google – as it no longer has to go through the two parties to advertise on either Bing or Yahoo Search.

Image from: Choice Value Innovation (Microsoft/Yahoo)

“Through this agreement with Yahoo!, we will create more innovation in search, better value for advertisers, and real consumer choice in a market currently dominated by a single company,” Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, said in a press release.

“Success in search requires both innovation and scale. With our new Bing search platform, we’ve created breakthrough innovation and features. This agreement with Yahoo! will provide the scale we need to deliver even more rapid advances in relevancy and usefulness. Microsoft and Yahoo! know there’s so much more that search could be.”

“This agreement gives us the scale and resources to create the future of search,” he continues.

“This agreement comes with boatloads of value for Yahoo!, our users, and the industry. And I believe it establishes the foundation for a new era of Internet innovation and development,” Carol Bartz, the CEO of Yahoo, said in the same press release.

“Users will continue to experience search as a vital part of their Yahoo! experiences and will enjoy increased innovation thanks to the scale and resources this deal provides. Advertisers will also benefit from scale and enjoy greater ease of use and efficiencies working with a single platform and sales team for premium advertisers. Finally, this deal will help us increase our investments in priority areas in winning audience properties, display advertising capabilities, and mobile experiences.”

The agreement is set in stone for ten years – which will also see Microsoft licensing Yahoo’s core search technology to integrate into Bing, while its AdCenter platform will be used by both companies to serve self-serving advertising. Yahoo will get some of the advertising profit on a revenue sharing agreement through its websites, and will get paid at an initial rate of 88 percent of search revenues from traffic acquisition costs from Microsoft.

However, it does not cover its other web properties in e-mail, instant messaging or other competing aspects of their businesses. It also needs regulatory approval from the Department of Justice, but both parties are hoping that this can close in early 2010.

In Australia, this would mean that Bing will be powering Yahoo!7 Search, which is possibly a good thing as Seven owns a share of Consolidated Media Holdings, which owns PBL Media, who in turn owns NineMSN, who runs Bing in Australia.

Despite spending huge money in upgrading the search engine from Windows Live Search, it still has a miniscule market share, but it did gain in market share from the previous Windows Live Search – and while it is small, it is considered huge as it is, obviously, competing with powerhouse Google.

It looks like Microsoft’s renamed Windows Live Search, Bing, is not a joke after all, as StatCounter has recorded that on June 4, the website managed to beat Yahoo, by taking some of the market share from Google – which is a big deal, as Google typically ranges above the 80 percent mark.

On that day, Bing managed to take a 16.28% share, while Yahoo had a 10.22% share. Google remains the top, however, with a 71.47% share. However, these reflect the users in the competitive US market; as Bing still manages to trail behind Google and Yahoo worldwide. But, if we look on the data from the last seven days, it seems that people are going back to Google – which might be a bad thing for Bing, as not a lot of users are sticking with the new search engine.

Australia, however, saw Bing reached second position, managing to outperform Yahoo by a fraction. Google, however, still wins over 90% of the market, but with the partnership with ninemsn, co-owned by Microsoft and PBL Media, might have helped it gain more market share. It’s outperformance started on June 2, and is hovering at a 3 percent share.

However, we will see if Bing still continues to remain second position in the coming weeks.

Yahoo has announced that it will be killing off the Yahoo 360! service on July 12, after many years of prolonging its survival. This move follows a similar move that it did in August of last year when it shut down another site, Mash, because of a lukewarm response.

Over the four years, it has lost popularity over Twitter, Facebook and MySpace; and blogging platforms like Windows Live Spaces, Blogger and WordPress. However, as the site will shut down, a similar service offered by Yahoo Vietnam called Yahoo 360plus will continue – because it is massively popular in the country.

However, it is not leaving the blogging service realm just yet. Yahoo has also revamped its user’s profiles to make it look similar to Mash – but will allow you to change your status and put in blog postings within your connections (a.k.a friends). However, I predict this is going to fail.

You can find information on how to save the stuff you put on your Yahoo 360 service on their special page on helping users to prepare for the shutdown.

Now, we have added 3 more entries, along with the three remaining from our previous list, but now this time, we record the improvements with pictures and stuff.

Now sit back and enjoy.

Yahoo7

Yes, the unusable Yahoo7 TV website has gotten an improvement and is now offering full episode video for only two shows: Heroes and 30 Rock. Yes, out of all the programs – including its own, they chose Heroes and 30 Rock to be allowed to be fully streamed online. Full episodes last only for a week, except for 30 Rock for some reason as the video is on a playlist and the previous episode before it is also played.

The quality could be higher, or get a dedicated website for full episodes, but I think it’s to compensate for the quality of the internet here in Australia.

ABC iView

ABC iView has gotten an improved interface from the last time we saw it – and its now more usable than before. There are currently eight channels, ranging from Arts to News and children programming, including archives – and a new Australia Network channel, allowing those who live in Australia to learn English to do so. Programming expires on different times, like CatchUp will last for 14 days, while Arts programming last for about 14 days to 30 days, depending on the program.

However, unlike Yahoo7’s own deal – it has almost all of its programming in primetime in ABC iView, including The Bill, Moving Wallpaper, Peep Show and Echo Beach; and its own programming from The Gruen Transfer, Lateline and Q&A – even though they can be viewed in its entirety via other methods as well.

SBS

SBS still offers Full Episode watching via its player that is in another window, however, many of these programs now have their own mini-site, like Mad Men, so you can watch the programs without opening another window. These programs are to be watched with 7 days after transmission, before they are taken down and replaced with another episode.

Its selection of video is limited, and only expand to new shows recently added to its Primetime, with the exclusion of World News Australia, foreign films and shows and most local programming. Current programming includes Mad Men, Eurovision 2009, Dave in the Life and Shameless. This is expected to increase during the year, and with the launch of SBS Two.

Channel Ten

Channel Ten is again still offering full episode of its shows, but most of them are their locally produced programming – with the exception of the Bold and the Beautiful, as it is the most popular soap that is broadcasted on Channel Ten. Most of its programming is now spilt up in several parts, which is an annoyance, but its for the purposes of adding advertisements between parts – as it was previously ad-free.

Most of the programming shown is there has an unspecified timeframe to expire, some even stay there until its deemed to be removed, which could take months after being broadcast initially. Sadly, its new channel ONE does not have its original programming released as “full episodes” but as clips. Their player is also on the borderline ugly, with the yellow.

YouTube

Yes, the most popular video sharing website is now offering full video episodes from many different sources – in a way to compete with US rival Hulu, with shows from NBC Universal and Fox’s television channels. YouTube’s offering uses the popular and usable player, and most episodes are up for the entire life of the show – including the show above from US network Current TV, and yes, this can be watched from Australia.

In fact, some of the shows are available to everyone, with selected shows only limited to the US or the region locale, like you will not see BBC Worldwide programming in the UK, since you go the freaking iPlayer. Just also note that the programs are shown, by default, in High Quality mode – so switch that off before playing the video.

C31 Melbourne

The most unlikely candidate, but it is still a channel in Australia – just not yet on the digital platform, or on cable. Channel 31’s interface is actually the main website, so there is no difference, and their delivery system is top notch, able to roll advertisements before the episode begins. Episodes tend to be based on the latest 5 episodes, and most of its local programming is featured.

Unfortunately, because it is a community broadcaster, the videos are purposely re-encoded to a lower bitrate and quality as its bandwidth most likely can’t handle the pressure of having such high quality material.

The layoffs could be announced as early as Tuesday, when Yahoo is expected to report its first quarter results for this year (Q1 2009), and could affect several hundreds of employees. Yahoo has declined to comment, citing policy not to discuss speculation and rumours.

The company previously had cut 1,000 employees in early 2008, with an additional 1,400 jobs going in the forth quarter of 2008 (Q4 2008), in an effort to limit expenditure in the troubling economy.

Yahoo’s growth has been slowed down in recent years, after losing its market share in advertising and in search. It also missed several opportunities to acquire sites like YouTube and Facebook, both becoming popular sites for younger web users. It also missed a chance to be bought out by Microsoft, after Jerry Yang and the board opted to reject the bid – sending Yahoo’s share price in a freefall.

Reports have also indicated that Yahoo is looking to sell some of its business units that do not meet the core mission that Yahoo has, including recruiting site Hotjobs.

Is this Yahoo’s new ad strategy to bring in more ad revenue? You be the judge of that. And if you advertise on Flickr, this will (hopefully) be fixed soon.

Bartz. 60, will also become another member in the Board of Directors, and both jobs are effective immediately.

“We are very excited to have Carol Bartz leading Yahoo! into its next era of growth. She is the exact combination of seasoned technology executive and savvy leader that the Board was looking for, and we are thrilled to have attracted such a world-class talent to Yahoo!,” Chairman of the Board, Roy Bostock, said in a statement.

“Carol meets all of the criteria we set for the search and is the only person to whom we offered the job. The Board is united in its view that her energetic and decisive leadership style, coupled with a proven track record of driving growth, operational excellence and shareholder value, is exactly what Yahoo! needs to get back on a path toward achieving its full potential."

Also announced was the departure of Sue Decker, the President of Yahoo; but will remain for a transitional period. “The Board thanks Sue for her service as President, the important contributions she has made to Yahoo!’s development in a variety of roles over the past 8-1/2 years, and her willingness to work with Carol Bartz to ensure a smooth transition. We respect her decision to move on to other challenges and wish her only the best,” Bostock said.

This is part of a plan to reduce annual expenses by $400 million by the end of the year. It is also planning, according to CNET News, to consolidate facilities, moving some of its business to areas that cost less to operate, shutting down parts of its business and putting others in “maintenance-only” mode to cut down its spending, which is at $3.9 billion before the cuts.

It is also the second jobs cull from Yahoo this year, with a previous one happening in February after its poor results in the last quarter of last year (Q4 2007), cutting 1,000 jobs.

It stocks closed on $13.40, an increase of $1.21, or 9.93%.

But in “specific categories”, Heath Ledger placed first in the Top 10 Farewells, while the IRS Stimulus Checks were the top Economy related search term. Angelina Jolie was found to be the most-searched influential woman, being placed first – ahead of Sarah Palin (2nd) and Oprah Winfrey (3rd); and Barack Obama was the most-searched Politician.

Michael Phelps was the top-searched Olympian, while Miley Cyrus was the most-searched “Celebrity Brat Pack” search term. Making the top news search queries – Hurricanes made first place, while Caylee and Casey Anthony was second, and the US Election 2008 was the third on the list.

In other news, AOL also put out a list of their hottest search terms – but unlike Yahoo, they are the top of their category, and not all together. The list saw the Britney Spears being the Top Celebrity, the iPhone topping the Shopping queries, the Flat Belly Diet the top in Health-related search terms, NASCAR the top in sports, the Presidential Election topping the News-related search queries, the Jonas Brothers the top Musicians and “American Idol” the top television show.

According to the UK’s Sunday Times, Microsoft is reported to have started talks with Yahoo to acquire Yahoo’s search business for US$20 billion – proving once again, Microsoft cannot stay away from Yahoo. However, senior directors at both companies have not guaranteed that it will be a success.

“Senior directors at Microsoft and Yahoo are understood to have agreed the broad terms of a deal, but there is no guarantee that it will succeed,” The Times has said in its report.

If Yahoo does sell its search business, it would give Microsoft a huge boost in its own Windows Live brand, especially in its Search offering – Windows Live Search, and it may also include its search advertising, but we do not know if that is true. The US$20 billion pricetag is a bit steep, especially during this climate; however, Microsoft does have a history of paying more to get the deal, especially with Yahoo – like its original bid, where it offered $33 per share.

The price is also $4 billion more than its market capitalisation of just under $16 billion.

The deal comes weeks after Yahoo announced that Jerry Yang has decided to go back being Chairman and Head Yahoo!, and also the failed Google-Yahoo ad deal that was supposed to deter Microsoft away from the company.

Image from JVManna/Flickr.

Under financial pressure because of the economic crisis – plus having that Google ad deal terminated; co-founder Jerry Yang is reported to have step down as the chief executive officer for the company after the company appoints a successor for the CEO role. However, Yang will not leave the company and will still keep his title as “Chief Yahoo” and will still be part of the Board of Directors.

"Over the past year and a half, despite extraordinary challenges and distractions, Jerry Yang has led the repositioning of Yahoo! on an open platform model as well as the improved alignment of costs and revenues," chairman Roy Bostock said in a press release.

"Jerry and the Board have had an ongoing dialogue about succession timing, and we all agree that now is the right time to make the transition to a new CEO who can take the company to the next level. We are deeply grateful to Jerry for his many contributions as CEO over the past 18 months, and we are pleased that he plans to stay actively involved at Yahoo! as a key executive and member of the Board."

Yang took over the CEO position (on the board’s behest, according to the press release) in June 2007. His short tenure as CEO saw the stock price dropped, rejecting a generous offer from Microsoft to buy the company, and a deal with Google that fell through due to an investigation with the Department of Justice.

TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington has written that the latest person to take over the company’s CEO position should be an outsider, not someone from the company:

Whoever ends up with the job, let’s just hope it’s an outsider. Yahoo is being clear that they are considering internal candidates. President Sue Decker is likely being considered. But ex-execs we’ve spoken with say she was a big part of the problem at Yahoo, and if she takes over as CEO it will likely be more of the same.

The full press release can be read below.

Image: Flickr/Yahoo/Yodel Anecdotal

Yahoo! Conducting Search for New CEO

Co-Founder Jerry Yang to Step Down Following Appointment of New CEO and Return to Former Role as Chief Yahoo! and Board Member

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Nov 17, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) —

Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO) today announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a search for a new Chief Executive Officer. Jerry Yang, co-Founder of Yahoo!, has decided to return to his former role as Chief Yahoo! upon the appointment of his successor as CEO, and he will also continue to serve on the Board. Yang, 40, assumed the CEO role at the Board’s request in June 2007, and he has led Yahoo! through a strategic repositioning and transformation of its platform.

Chairman Roy Bostock, working with the independent directors and in consultation with Jerry Yang, is leading the process of assessing potential candidates and determining finalists for consideration. The search will encompass both internal and external candidates, and the Board has retained Heidrick & Struggles, a leading international executive search firm, to assist in the process.

"Over the past year and a half, despite extraordinary challenges and distractions, Jerry Yang has led the repositioning of Yahoo! on an open platform model as well as the improved alignment of costs and revenues," said Roy Bostock. "Jerry and the Board have had an ongoing dialogue about succession timing, and we all agree that now is the right time to make the transition to a new CEO who can take the company to the next level. We are deeply grateful to Jerry for his many contributions as CEO over the past 18 months, and we are pleased that he plans to stay actively involved at Yahoo! as a key executive and member of the Board."

"From founding this company to guiding its growth into a trusted global brand that is indispensible to millions of people, I have always sought to do what is best for our franchise," said Jerry Yang. "When the Board asked me to become CEO and lead the transformation of the Company, I did so because it was important to re-envision the business for a different era to drive more effective growth. Having set Yahoo! on a new, more open path, the time is right for me to transition the CEO role and our global talent to a new leader. I will continue to focus on global strategy and to do everything I can to help Yahoo! realize its full potential and enhance its leading culture of technology and product excellence and innovation."

Google’s Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, said in a blog post that while Google was disappointed, but it would not contest the decision – saying that the prospect of a lengthy legal battle would “distract us from our core mission.”

However, after four months of review, including discussions of various possible changes to the agreement, it’s clear that government regulators and some advertisers continue to have concerns about the agreement. Pressing ahead risked not only a protracted legal battle but also damage to relationships with valued partners. That wouldn’t have been in the long-term interests of Google or our users, so we have decided to end the agreement.

We’re of course disappointed that this deal won’t be moving ahead. But we’re not going to let the prospect of a lengthy legal battle distract us from our core mission. That would be like trying to drive down the road of innovation with the parking brake on. Google’s continued success depends on staying focused on what we do best: creating useful products for our users and partners.

Yahoo has also express disappointment, but also expressed its disappointment with Google, who rejected the move to fight the deal in court. In a press release, Yahoo said:

Yahoo! continues to believe in the benefits of the agreement and is disappointed that Google has elected to withdraw from the agreement rather than defend it in court. Google notified Yahoo! of its refusal to move forward with implementation of the agreement following indication from the Department of Justice that it would seek to block it, despite Yahoo!’s proposed revisions to address the DOJ’s concerns.

However, even though this is bad news for both companies, Yahoo’s stock price has increased 4.3 percent at the time of writing, to $13.92; and Google falling 6.7 percent to $342.24. But some are speculating that Microsoft may be attempting to buy Yahoo again. Previously, Yahoo rejected a bid from Microsoft after Jerry Yang and the Board of Directors decided that they can do better. You can view both companies stock prices below.

Yahoo and Google is being reported to have submitted a revised version of their proposal to form an advertisement partnership to the US Justice Department anti-trust regulators, according to the Wall Street Journal – citing “people familiar with the matter”.

According to the newspaper, both parties have added new provisions to limit the “scope of the deal” in a bid to get the green light from the Justice Department. It also shortens the agreement from 10 years to two years, and caps the revenue that Yahoo can generate from the deal to 25 percent of Yahoo’s total search revenue. This also would see Google advertisers opting out of having their ads being displayed on sites Yahoo would be putting Google’s advertising.

Previously, Google and Yahoo – number one and two in the web ad market respectively – announced on October 3 that both parties would be delaying the alliance until October 22, allowing the regulators to have more time to make a decision. Yahoo was also expecting to generate hundreds of millions of dollars from the new deal in the first year alone, but now that is debatable.

Microsoft, who is third in the market, had been opposed to the deal, with its senior vice president and general counsel Brad Smith arguing that the new deal would effectively give Google "an unprecedented level of control over advertising for search on the Internet — up to 90 percent potentially of all search ads." Microsoft previously tried to buy Yahoo in February 2008, but it was rejected by the board of Yahoo.

Image from: FlashedCoder

After using a design which we said that it was copying Yahoo’s previous design; it has now launched a new beta design based on the designs that most of its sites (except blogs) use. The new design also includes several new features, including that they can log into their social networks to view updates, while allowing you to adding links to sites that you frequently visit – if you set it as your homepage.

The new design also has themes, with six preset designs you can chose from. Also added is a new feeds browser at the bottom of the page, with several feeds already available – like CNET, Engadget and Wired. Is this the beginning of a new direction that AOL is heading? Well, they are part of the new OpenID service – allowing you to use your AIM account to log into other sites that support the format without signing up for a new account (like here, at TECHGEEK.com.au).

You can view the entire site below after the jump – with the link to it.

“These changes resulted in a select number of staff exits which will be effective immediately, with the ultimate goal of positioning Yahoo7 to achieve long-term, sustainable growth,” she said to the media today.

This comes after its parent company, Yahoo, in the US plans to cut 10 percent of its entire global workforce, a total of almost 1,500 jobs being cut of its 14,300 employees worldwide. Yahoo7 is a joint venture between Yahoo and the Seven Network.