Google Inc. slightly increased its leading market share among U.S. Internet-search engines last month, while Microsoft Corp.’s Bing search engine also gained market share, according to market researcher comScore Inc. Google’s U.S. market share rose 0.1 percentage point to 66.5 percent in April from the prior month. Microsoft’s share also edged up 0.1 percentage point to 15.4 percent last month. Yahoo Inc.’s sites remained in the No. 3 spot, slipping 0.2 percentage points to 13.5 percent. IAC/InterActiveCorp.’s Ask.com’s share and AOL Inc.’s shares were unchanged at 3 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively. Read the rest of this post on the original site »
Read MoreLast week, YouTube threw a glitzy party designed to get advertisers to move their money from TV to the giant video site. Is it working? Capstone analyst Rory Maher thinks so. He’s been polling ad buyers and thinks they may collectively be spending 40 percent more on YouTube than they did a year ago. He also thinks YouTube’s strategy of grouping its new channels into “genres” — like “women,” “pop culture,” etc. — and selling those as megapackages is attractive to advertisers, and that they’ve at least placed tentative commitments on all 18 packages YouTube is selling. But those dollars aren’t going to come from TV, Maher thinks
Read MoreiCloud is among the best products Microsoft has ever designed. Mike Monteiro , via Twitter
Read MoreIt is time for spring cleaning, or as I think of it, my yearly chance to shove old technology products to the back of my storage closet. Instead, this should be a chance to take advantage of companies’ stepped-up recycling efforts. Last year, 460 million pounds of electronics were collected and recycled in the U.S., a 53% increase from 2010, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. People know they should recycle their old or unwanted technology products, but they don’t know where to begin. So this week, I did the dirty work, rounding up details from eight major companies about their recycling programs, including fees, drop-off locations, acceptable products, shipping options, haul-away services and personal-data-wiping solutions. Readers: Your days of pack-rat procrastinating are numbered.
Read MoreYahoo just released a statement that its board will “review” today’s disclosure that the bio of its CEO Scott Thompson contained an error related to his educational achievements and make “appropriate disclosure” about what happened. On both the Web site and in the regulatory filings of the Silicon Valley Internet giant, Thompson is described as having a degree in both computer science and accounting from Stone Hill College. He does not have a degree in computer science from the Boston-based school, but does have a Bachelor’s of Science in Business Administration (Accounting). Yahoo said in full in its statement: “In connection with the statement the company made earlier today about Scott Thompson, the Yahoo! board will be reviewing this matter, and upon completion of its review, will make an appropriate disclosure to shareholders.” Earlier today, Yahoo first blamed the issue on and “inadvertent error” — but provided no further details — which sources said did not sit well with the board . “Many members of the board are deeply concerned,” said one person with knowledge of its thinking. “This is a problem on a lot of levels, especially related to the trust of shareholders.” Indeed, especially since the news came to light via activist shareholder Dan Loeb of Third Point, who is agitating for board seats via a proxy fight. Loeb’s efforts to impugn Thompson appear to have caused some level of damage, at least in terms of perception about the level of vetting that was done when he was hired earlier this year
Read MoreBack in early 2008 when Scott Thompson got the job as president of eBay’s PayPal, the regulatory filing accurately listed his educational pedigree: “Mr. Thompson holds a B.S. degree in Accounting from Stonehill College.” The eBay filings over the next several years — until he left the online commerce giant for a much bigger job as CEO of Yahoo in January of this year — remained consistent. But, curiously, Thompson’s bio on eBay’s Web site added an additional degree to his curriculum vitae for more than a half-dozen years, different from its Securities and Exchange Commission documents: “Scott received a bachelor’s in accounting and computer science from Stonehill College.” As it turned out, according to the Boston-area school, he had not gotten a computer science degree at all and graduated with the Bachelor’s of Science in Business Administration (Accounting). An eBay spokesman I called today had no explanation for the discrepancy, except to note that its legal filings were correct and that it was an error due to the lack of cross-checking the Web bio, which was apparently posted by Thompson’s staff at the time. Also without explanation — and perhaps more seriously — is that the false computer science degree claim somehow then made it into Yahoo’s SEC filings, as well as his Web site bio, when Thompson took the helm. (The inaccurate line about his schooling is in its latest filing and all others.) Without providing further explanation of how it got there, Yahoo today called the mistake an “inadvertent error” and said it had no bearing on his ability to lead the Silicon Valley Internet giant. But the long troubled company might be speaking too soon, given that the revelation was uncovered this morning by activist shareholder Dan Loeb of Third Point . Loeb has called into question the vetting process that Yahoo’s directors did to hire Thompson, as part of a proxy fight he is waging to gain several board seats. And, while such an allegation is normal for an increasingly nasty battle, Loeb has hit his mark with deadly accuracy this time, putting into question both Thompson’s credibility and Yahoo’s obvious botching in its vetting of him. “If there is a good explanation for the apparent discrepancies regarding the academic records of Mr. Thompson and Ms. Hart, we are confident that it will be provided promptly,” wrote Loeb in a letter to Yahoo’s board today.
Read MoreOver the weekend, I reported that Duncan Watts, the well-known social network researcher, had left Yahoo to join Microsoft . Turns out he’s not the only one. Microsoft snatched up not only Watts, but 13 other Yahoo researchers to kick-start a yet-to-be-opened New York research lab. That includes algorithmic economist David Pennock — who will oversee day-to-day lab operations — and machine-learning expert John Langford. Microsoft has an extensive research organization that includes 850 Ph.D.s. New York City will be its 13th global office, according to Jennifer Chayes, who manages Microsoft Research New England as well as the new New York group. The hires came after Yahoo made significant layoffs last month that hit its research organization hard. Chayes said the Yahoo researchers didn’t necessarily come as a package. “I don’t feel like we hired a group; I feel like we hired 15 amazing individuals, some of which became available because there were some problems at Yahoo,” she said. Though Microsoft might seem like a bit of an odd fit for Watts, given its lack of social products, Watts said today that he’s looking forward to working with data from Microsoft’s Xbox, Hotmail, MSN Messenger and Skype for research projects on topics like group performance and network structure. He also said that Microsoft’s partnerships with Twitter and Facebook enable extensive data access that he might have had trouble getting elsewhere. Why Microsoft? “It’s an extremely distinguished research organization with long history and stable culture for both basic and applied science,” Watts said. Starting a lab from scratch, he said, is “a once-in-a-career opportunity.” As for how Watts’s research might influence Microsoft products, that’s to be decided, but he said he had ideas for the search and news teams, once he gets a chance to go to Redmond to meet them. The New York research team doesn’t have an office yet — for now, it’s working out of Microsoft’s sales office there. (Image courtesy of Robert Scoble )
Read MoreDuncan Watts, the social science researcher who has been at Yahoo since 2007, has left the company. Yahoo confirmed the departure. Watts has reportedly joined Microsoft’s research organization, but the software company declined to comment. Watts, who is an Australian with degrees in physics and applied mechanics, researches social networks and collective dynamics. He lives in New York and played a role in the creation of The Huffington Post , after writing the influential book, “Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age.” Watts’s departure is one of many within Yahoo’s once-vaunted search business, including Yahoo Labs head Prabhakar Raghavan, who went to Google . Watts’s recent research has tended toward disproving common assumptions about how people and groups behave, as demonstrated on social networks online. For instance, he looked at influence on Twitter (hint: he’s not a fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s concept of influencers, as described in “The Tipping Point”), the likeliness of cooperation on the Web (apparently, it’s not as dependent on others’ behavior as previously assumed), and diversity of opinions about politics among friends (a Facebook study showed friends disagree more than they think they do). In fact, Watts wrote a whole book about how people’s attempts to make sense of the world and how we relate to each other are often wrong — and because our online interactions can be recorded and studied, those assumptions can increasingly be disproved. It’s called “ Everything is Obvious, Once You Know the Answer .” Here’s a video of me interviewing him about it from last year : [ See post to watch video ]
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