Yahoo's IntoNow fades to Black

I guess I can remove this app from my iPad. Obviously I wasn't using it and apparently I wasn't alone. Yahoo's IntoNow second-screen app is shutting down effective March 31st. You may remember it as one of the many that popped up in the early part of the decade. Purchased by Yahoo in 2011, it offered Shazam like capabilities which gave it built-in auto content recognition (ACR) technology for recognizing television programming, a feature which first caught my attention and had me downloading it and trying it out. As with other second-screen apps it also allowed the users to check-in to the television shows they were watching and share their viewing habits with friends on Facebook and Twitter. Frankly, I found this to be a feature I never used. If I wanted to share info like this I would have asked them over and made popcorn! Ryan Lawler @ TechCrunch agrees writing, “The idea was as preposterous then as it seems now, but thanks to the relative early success of Foursquare back in those days, eager app makers were trying to get people to check into every damn thing.” MORE: techcrunch.com 01/29/14 - Yahoo Is Shutting Down IntoNow, Nearly Three Years After Acquisition by Ryan Lawler

Yahoo eyes Hulu

Add Yahoo to the growing list of Hulu-suitors. According to reports, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Chief Operating Officer Henrique De Castro recently met with executives at Hulu, the premium video service whose owners have been considering selling it for some months. Hulu would make a powerful weapon to add and they also have mobile applications for their premium subscribers, making the company a natural fit. Mayer's drive into the mobile & digital content spaces seem to offer this deal synergies that could justify the enormous cost of this acquisition. She has made it no secret that her company has been looking to expand its video assets, recently acquiring the exclusive rights to all of SNL's classic clips from 1975 through 2012 while expanding their original exclusive programming. While speaking this past Tuesday during the Wired Business Conference, Mayer's stated that "video is important across all of the company's properties" and that Yahoo is becoming a "mobile-focused firm".

Hulu's board still has a lot of decisions to make and Yahoo has not made and offer. One thing does seem clear at this point and that is that if Yahoo is to pick up the video company, it will fundamentally change the online video landscape, and put Yahoo into competition with a host of new firms.

Yahoo Enters the Mobile Search Market

In a bid to restore investor faith and aggressively drive into the mobile search market, Yahoo will announce a new version of Go, its mobile phone search software, today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. About 500 million people use Yahoo services via their PCs, where it is second to Google in Web search. However, as mobile phones outsold PCs by about 4-to-1 in Q3 of last year, Yahoo has opted to plunge into the mobile search market. Go's oneSearch function classifies queries by type to provide the user with a more efficient search. Yahoo will use Web ads to encourage users to download the software themselves, rather than relying on mobile service providers or handset manufacturers. The company will announce partnerships with Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Research in Motion under which the software will be included with handsets. Competition should be fierce: Apple is working on a mobile phone and Google has introduced mobile versions of its services. Links: MarketWatch Jan 08, 2007 - With lead slipping, Yahoo focuses on wireless, Bloomberg.com Jan 08, 2007 - Yahoo Releases New Version of Mobile-Phone Software

Yahoo's future with 'Panama'

Yahoo hopes to put a weak 2006 behind it with the full release of its 'Panama' advertising platform in early 2007. The company would love to forget a year in which it lost search market share to Google, saw online ad revenues increase at a slower-than-expected pace and watched its share price plummet by 40%. But while Yahoo spent the last two years developing 'Panama,' which is supposed to narrow the gap with online search and advertising leader Google by increasing the accuracy of search-related ads and the accompanying click-throughs, companies like Google have already moved beyond search into 'non-premium' online ad venues, inking deals with social networking sites like MySpace while also encroaching into Yahoo's specialty, online branded advertising. Links: BusinessWeek Dec 26, 2006 - Why Yahoo's Panama Won't Be Enough, Blog - Don Dodge: Why Yahoo's Panama Project won't be enough

Yahoo is Influential

Yahoo is the top Search Engine when rated by Influence to Purchase
Media influence and/or engagement are hot topics in today's ROI driven ad world, and when it comes to the top search engines Yahoo! is the overall #1 choice for most influential on purchase decisions and Google is number 4. The findings are from BIGresearch's latest Simultaneous Media Survey (SIMMVII), which surveyed over 15,000 respondents. "When you look at the impact of Internet Advertising on specific purchase decisions and not just click throughs, the impact of internet advertising is a different story," said Joe Pilotta, VP/Research at BIGresearch. Links: BIGresearch Press Release