Yahoo! shareholder revolt

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn reportedly has decided to lead a mutiny against Yahoo Inc.’s board in an attempt to pressure the directors into reviving negotiations to sell Yahoo to Microsoft Corp.

To turn up the heat on Yahoo’s board, Icahn has lined up a slate of 10 directors to nominate as replacements, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website Wednesday, citing an unnamed person close to the matter.

Icahn hadn’t returned phone messages from The Associated Press as of late Wednesday. His intentions should become clear soon, however, because Yahoo has set a Thursday deadline for submitting candidates to oppose its board at the company’s July 3 annual meeting.

A representative of Sunnyvale-based Yahoo declined to comment. (link)

Google image search

Display advertising, where Google does not shine as brightly as it does in search ads, could be coming to the image searching side of the site.

Google may not plan to have ads on its signature home page, but everything else appears to be fair game.

Marissa Mayer told Bloomberg Radio that Google thinks matching graphical-display ads with image searches “represents a large opportunity, and there’s lot of potential for advertising revenue there.”

“We haven’t found a proper way to monetize image search to date,” Mayer said in the report. “You may see us roll out an ads-image search in the future, but when we do you’ll know that’s because we found a way that ultimately enhances user happiness with the product.”

We’re not certain how happy ads will make people who are only looking for the latest celebrity photos in image search, though we see an obvious tie-in for media companies and their top-tier commercial backers with image search display advertising. (link)

Tips on making a good site

1. User experience. Make it unique, make it friendly, make it yours.
2. Information. Have lots of it. Being an expert in your field will ensure your visitors will return.
3. Spelling and grammar. Nothing reeks more than an amateur webmaster.
4. Store. As in online store. Don’t oversell, have a nice little discreet link off to the side. If they really want to buy, they will find a way to give you their money.
5. Partner. If they can’t find what they’re looking for direct them to a trusted partner.

Avoid SEO mistakes

Making mistakes with search engine optimisation (SEO) can cost businesses traffic and even cause search providers to banish them from the top rankings, an expert has warned.

Industry analyst Caroline Melberg made her comments in the blog for online resource Small Business Mavericks, warning that good SEO involved finding the correct balance between optimisation and tactics which could be considered unethical.

She urged marketers not to overstuff their copy with keywords, warning them to ensure their content is readable and natural. (link)

Google unsure about link building

While championing King Content, the Google reps have left out the second most important (some argue most important) aspect of SEO, acquiring those coveted in-bound links. It could have been for the sake of brevity. After all, using the define function on Google brings back several definition snippets, only one of which actually gets around to mentioning the necessity of building links.

But it seems to some Googlers should be more thorough when defining an industry the company has dictated for some time. Tim, at the eCommerce and Entrepreneurship blog suggest the definition—especially if this is going to be an official one—should be expanded to include other techniques:

Although Google’s definition is likely accurate from a historical perspective, if Search Engine Optimization has become more synonymous with ranking higher than with adjusting content, and ranking higher is influenced by a slew factors, some of which arguably have more or less influence than content, maybe the definition of Search Engine Optimization should be something like the following (link)

When does social networking prank become a crime?

Anonymous pranksters who made a fake Facebook profile for a high school dean and used it to send out messages may soon be exposed, thanks to a court order issued late last week. Dean Tim Puntarelli of Roncalli High School—a Catholic prep school on the south side of Indianapolis—sued the social networking site in an attempt to find out who is behind the profile, citing harassment and identity theft. Marion Superior Court Judge Robyn Moberly’s order is meant to identify the still-anonymous individuals so that Puntarelli and the Archdiocese of Indianapolis (which operates the high school) can hold them responsible for what they perceive to be character defamation, even though the profile is no longer up. (link)

Google integrates Postini into the mix

Google has been boosting its Google Apps product suite as fit for corporate use for months, with new security and deployment features arriving on a regular basis. The company’s latest endeavor, Google Web Security for Enterprise, is now available, and promises to provide a consistent level of system security whether an end-user is surfing from the office or working at home halfway across town.

The new service is branded under Google’s “Powered by Postini” product line and, according to the company, “provides real-time malware protection and URL filtering with policy enforcement and reporting. An additional feature extends the same protections to users working remotely on laptops in hotels, cafes, and even guest networks.” The service is presumably activated by signing in directly to a Google service, as Google explicitly states that workers do not need access to a corporate network. (link)

Google hoping for long term Yahoo deal

Google Inc.’s top executives on Thursday expressed hope that the Internet search leader will be able to form a potentially lucrative advertising partnership with Yahoo Inc. - a deal that would lower the odds of Microsoft Corp. renewing its attempts to buy Yahoo.

“We have been talking to Yahoo and we are very excited to be working with them,” Google co-founder Sergey Brin told reporters before the company’s annual shareholders meeting. “We share a lot of values with them.”

Neither Brin nor Google chairman Eric Schmidt would indicate how far along the two sides are in their negotiations after a two-week test was completed last month. During the trial run, Google supplied a small portion of the text-based ads that appeared alongside the search results on Yahoo’s website. (link)

YouTube clips driving traffic to Hulu for NBC

Are NBC’s efforts with Hulu paying off? They certainly appear to be. CEO Jeff Zucker recently announced that the site has sold out of its (admittedly limited) advertising space, and steady reviews keep praising Hulu’s high video quality and access to a broad—though constantly shifting—catalog. Judging from NBC’s return to YouTube with an official channel of video clips from popular shows, however, the company may finally be acknowledging the power of Google’s community.

NBC’s new HuluDotCom channel on YouTube was created in early March and features brief clips from popular shows like Family Guy, The Office, Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock, and more. Over 40 videos are featured in the channel already, but they’ve been added very sporadically. The most recent batch of around a dozen was added just two days ago, but the batch before that—the first one in the channel—was added back in March. Content frequency aside, however, further investigation reveals that this latest move to once again embrace the YouTube audience is a mixed bag. (link)

5 reasons you need SEO

1. Search engines drive traffic. Making your target audience aware of your brand is getting your foot in the door.

2. Mobile search is the next marketing real estate. If you can’t see the writing on the wall you might as well pack up and quit.

3. Your customers are online searching for information. Customers are more savvy than ever. Providing the right information will instantly build up your trust level.

4. Your competitors are online providing that information. How many people get answers at one place and go buy at another? Exactly.

5. More and more customers are making online purchases. Why get in the car and drive to the mall when you can have it shipped right to your door?