Carol Bartz was CEO of Yahoo! until yesterday, when she was unceremoniously fired. During her three year-tenure, Bartz pushed the stock price up 6.6%. Now the online giant's shares have moved roughly the same amount on news of her departure. But the market didn't send shares of Yahoo! higher because Bartz is gone, but rather because of what may come next.
Internet company Yahoo announced late Tuesday that it had fired Carol Bartz as CEO. After more than two years of financial lethargy, investors became convinced that she couldn't steer Yahoo to a long-promised turnaround.
YouTube has been a powerhouse in the online video arena since well before Google bought it. YouTube dominates the sector, accounting for nearly four out of 10 online video viewing sessions in the U.S. in May. What's still a question is how much the video-sharing site will add to Google profits.
Alibaba Group CEO Jack Ma told the the AllThingsD D9 conference that Yahoo should be broken into pieces. Ma may be in the midst of a beef with the search company, which holds a major stake in his firm, but despite the idea's source, a break-up could make sense financially.
For investors in search of good news, here's a quick rundown of some of the most promising developments in the market this week.
Yahoo, which holds roughly 40% of Alibaba's Chinese parent, Alibaba Group Holding, had been pining for an IPO of the e-commerce giant's sister company, Taobao. Now, though, with a fraud probe underway, Yahoo's chances of cashing in on an IPO just got slimmer.
Microsoft has definitively denied that its Bing search engine takes its cues from its rival. Nonetheless, the Google allegations highlights the challenges Microsoft faces in addressing the "long tail" market in search, or the obscure searches that collectively account for a huge portion of search traffic.
Research firm ComScore projects that spending on online-video advertising will more than triple between 2010 and 2015. But that doesn't mean you'll necessarily see more commercials per video. Spending will continue to lag behind the huge growth in online videos, according to ComScore.
Disney is considering lending some of the keys to its television kingdom to Yahoo for its Yahoo Connected TV. If Yahoo is successful in inking such a deal, it would bolster its Internet TV efforts and put on better footing to compete against rival products such as Google TV and Apple TV.
Soon, the Internet won't be the only medium to offer advertisers the ability to closely target specific types of customers. Starting in August or September, DirecTV plans to launch a new personalized advertising service for television. Can it bring the scope of TV to highly targeted ads?
A patent lawsuit brought by Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen against Apple, Google, and Yahoo, among others, has been dismissed. The judge found the suit, which failed to specify the products or devices that infringed on patents from Allen's company, too vague.
Among Wednesday's top stories for investors: Why Quepasa is no Facebook, what went wrong with the Fed's new $100 bills and why the Dogs of the Dow strategy might be ready for a comeback.
Japanese authorities gave the OK for Yahoo Japan and Google to partner on a new service in the country as long as the companies continued to remain separate.
Move over, Michael Jackson. The BP oil spill topped the list of most popular Yahoo searches in 2010, ejecting Jackson -- the hottest search in 2009 -- from the top spot. Other top searches included Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, Megan Fox, Justin Bieber and American Idol.
Forbes Media is reaching outside the family ranks for the first time to name a new CEO, the company announced Tuesday. Veteran venture capitalist and media executive Mike Perlis will assume his new post Dec. 1, replacing longtime CEO and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes.