Yahoo!, Inc. and its subsidiaries provide Internet services to users and businesses worldwide. The company provides owned and operated online properties and services (the Yahoo! Properties) to its global audience of users. It provides a range of tools and marketing solutions to its advertisers, designed to enable businesses to reach its users.
OFFERINGS TO BUSINESSES
The company’s offerings enable marketers to display their advertisements in different formats and in different locations on the Yahoo! Properties and off-network on its affiliates’ Web sites. Advertisers can display graphical advertisements on the pages that are viewed by its users across the Yahoo! Properties and on its affiliates’ Web sites. Yahoo! offers a range of tools available for online display advertising, including rich media, video and targeting. In addition to offering marketing services to businesses it also provides various services, such as:
Yahoo! HotJobs is an online recruiting industry, providing comprehensive solutions for employers, staffing firms and job seekers. Yahoo! HotJobs enables job seekers to create an online resume and to search and apply for jobs, and provides access to newsletters, online forums and salary research, free of charge. The company enables employers and staffing firms pay to access its database of job seekers and use its tools to post, track and manage job openings.
Yahoo! Small Business provides a comprehensive and integrated suite of fee-based online services, including Yahoo! Domains, Yahoo! Web Hosting, Yahoo! Business Mail and the company’s e-commerce platform called Yahoo! Merchant Solutions. By integrating the hosting solutions with business critical services and information, Yahoo! enables customers to get online, sell online, and market and promote online.
Yahoo! Local offers businesses a free service called Yahoo! Local Basic Listing allowing them to post detailed company information, such as their business hours, contact information, product/services offered and Web site address for Yahoo! users to see. Yahoo! Local also launched a self-serve version of Featured Listings, a simplified local advertising product for businesses to ensure preferred placement in the Yahoo! Local Sponsored Results section. Businesses can also submit additional content such as photos, logo and/or marketing information for a monthly fee through the Yahoo! Local Enhanced Listing service.
OFFERINGS TO USERS
The company’s offerings to users on its Yahoo! Properties fall into five categories: Search; Marketplace; Information and Entertainment; Communications, Communities and Front Doors; and Connected Life.
Search
The company’s Search offerings are the starting point for users navigating the Internet and searching for information, whether from their computer or mobile device. In Search, it intends to provide the search experience for users, advertisers and developers and to enrich people’s lives by enabling them to find, use, share and expand all human knowledge. In the areas of social search and media, it intends to enable people to connect and exchange knowledge, insights and experiences with each other.
The company’s Search product offerings include Search — Yahoo! Search; Yahoo! Toolbar and Yahoo! Search on Mobile; and Local — Yahoo! Local; Yahoo! Yellow Pages and Yahoo! Maps.
Search: Yahoo! Search, the company’s proprietary algorithmic search technology, provides users with a free comprehensive online search experience and free Internet search results sorted based on relevance to the user’s search query. Yahoo! Search discovers and processes billions of documents on the Internet to give users a comprehensive, up-to-date, and relevant search experience. Pages on the Internet are ranked according to their relevance to a particular query by analyzing document features, including text, title and description accuracy, source, associated links, and other document characteristics. A single search gives immediate results from a database that is updated frequently to capture newly created and changing pages, including late breaking news and timely events. The search might also return results from Yahoo! Answers, a social search platform that enables its users to post and answer questions in hundreds of categories. Yahoo! Answers is where millions of users come to get answers to those questions. Through the social bookmarking Web site del.icio.us, acquired by Yahoo!, users are able to access, manage and share their favorite pages on the Internet from any computer.
In 2006, the company enhanced its social media offerings, including Image Search, Video and Flickr. Flickr, its photo sharing and community site enables users to upload photos and offer the option of keeping them private, sharing them with a group of invited friends and family, or making them publicly available. Users can search the photos based on title, descriptions and tags. Flickr offers premium accounts, which include unlimited upload storage and permanent image archiving as well as other benefits, for a fee.
Yahoo! Video is an online video destination that hosts Yahoo!’s video search product, which enables users to search through an index of millions of video results compiled by crawling the Web and accepting feeds from multiple sites. Yahoo! Video also enables individual users and partners to upload video content directly to Yahoo! Video, where it can then be accessed by other users. In 2006, Yahoo! acquired Jumpcut, providing an online service for creating, editing, and sharing videos.
Yahoo! Toolbar is a free Web browser add-on that enables users to access its properties and services from anywhere on the Internet and provides free security services to enhance the user experience. In 2006, it released a beta version of the new Toolbar for Internet Explorer which allows users to customize their toolbar and make customized buttons for one click access to any Web site.
Yahoo! Search on Mobile enables users to access Web, image and local search on their wireless devices. In 2006, it launched paid mobile advertising. It also launched various mobile-related partnerships which allow it to distribute search results and its advertising platform on mobile devices in many countries around the world.
Local: The company’s Local offerings include three individual properties whose primary services are available free to users: Yahoo! Local, Yahoo! Yellow Pages, and Yahoo! Maps.
Yahoo! Local uses content and technology from other properties such as Yahoo! Yellow Pages and Yahoo! Maps to help users find local listings, recommendations, events and user reviews. The company offers new features that enable users to contribute additional types of user content to Yahoo! Local, including photos and tags. A ‘My Local’ dashboard was launched for users to view all of their contributions, organize their local findings into collections or lists, and share them with the community.
Yahoo! Yellow Pages enables users to connect to local and national merchants in the United States.
Yahoo! Maps provides interactive maps with zooming, real time traffic conditions and incident reports, together with integrated driving directions. Yahoo! Maps offers provides users an interactive look and feel with new features, such as multi-point driving directions, local content integration, larger main map and dynamic pan, zoom and re-center technology, aerial satellite imagery and international maps coverage.
Marketplace
Marketplace offerings are often the starting point for users seeking to purchase products and services on the Internet and seeking to access free services on the Internet. Its specific Marketplace product offerings include Shopping — Yahoo! Shopping; Kelkoo and Yahoo! Auctions; Real Estate — Yahoo! Real Estate; Travel — Yahoo! Travel and Yahoo! FareChase; Autos — Yahoo! Autos; and Personals — Yahoo! Personals and Yahoo! Personals Premier.
Shopping: Yahoo! Shopping provides comprehensive search functionality and comparison-shopping tools for users to find, research, compare and buy products online. This property also provides a full suite of merchant ratings and product review tools and in various countries includes the services of Kelkoo, S.A. (Kelkoo). The company launched the Yahoo! Shopping Bargains Center which provides users with coupons, rebates, free shipping offers, and sale items. These deals are updated daily, so users are able to return to the Bargains Center everyday to find new offers.
Kelkoo is the company’s International shopping platform. It provides product search functionality and an online comparison shopping service with operations in 10 European countries and also powers the Yahoo! Shopping services in Australia and Taiwan.
Yahoo! Auctions is incorporated into the Yahoo! Shopping platform and is a marketplace for buyers and sellers to trade goods in an auction-style setting. Yahoo! Auctions connects buyers and sellers and is available free of charge.
Real Estate: Yahoo! Real Estate provides information and services for users who are looking to buy, sell, or rent a home. Users are able to search across multiple property types, such as existing homes, new homes, apartment rentals, foreclosures, and classifieds while also searching based on geography, price and key amenities. Yahoo! Real Estate offers decision-support tools, such as interactive maps, home valuation tools, a range of calculators including mortgage and rent vs. own calculators, and content about local neighborhoods, schools, home loans, insurance, moving services, and finding a real estate agent.
Travel: Yahoo! Travel is a comprehensive online travel research and booking site for users to find, compare and purchase travel products, such as airline tickets, hotel rooms, car rentals, vacation packages and cruises. Yahoo! Travel also includes Yahoo! Trip Planner, a social media product that allows users to document their personal travel experiences and share those experiences with others. Yahoo! also offers a travel search engine called Yahoo! FareChase. FareChase is an extension of its search offerings that allows users to search for travel information from multiple travel service providers’ Web sites simultaneously and obtain results from all providers on one page for purposes of comparison shopping.
Autos: Yahoo! Autos enables users to research, price and compare cars online. Information and services available free of charge to the company’s users include vehicle pricing, specification and option information, used car listings, expert reviews, user reviews and ratings, car comparisons, financing calculators, and new car quotes from dealers. In 2006, it launched the Yahoo! Autos Green Center that provides expert and user generated content across all types of alternative fuel vehicles including hybrid, biodiesel, ethanol and natural gas vehicles and includes video, tools, articles and proprietary green ratings for every car.
Personals: Yahoo! Personals is an online dating service. It allows users, free of charge, to post a profile and search for others with whom to communicate within the Yahoo! Personals community. Users can also send short one-time messages to others to communicate their interest without charge. With a paid subscription, Yahoo! Personals’ users can e-mail and use Yahoo! Messenger to communicate with others in the Yahoo! Personals community. Yahoo! Personals Premier offers profiling and advanced searching tools.
Information and Entertainment
The company’s Information and Entertainment offerings deliver content that is available without charge to its users, and also provides some of its content on a fee or subscription basis. Its Information and Entertainment offerings include Information — Yahoo! News; Yahoo! Finance; Yahoo! Food; Yahoo! Tech and Yahoo! Health; and Entertainment — Yahoo! Sports; Yahoo! Music; Yahoo! Movies and Yahoo! TV; Yahoo! Games and Yahoo! Kids.
Information
Yahoo! News aggregates news stories from news providers such as the Associated Press, Reuters, AFP, The Washington Post, ABC News, CBS News, National Public Radio, and U.S. News and World Report. Through Yahoo! News, users receive free up-to-the-minute news coverage with video, text, photos and audio from multiple sources and points of view. In 2006, the company made enhancements to its offerings, including Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone, featuring original coverage on armed conflict in the world, and formed a partnership with CBS Corporation to provide streaming video coverage of the news magazine show, 60 Minutes. Local news coverage was expanded in 2006 through agreements with new partners, including CBS Corporation for local video content, as well as the December 2006 launch of ‘You Witness News,’ community news video content provided by users.
Yahoo! Finance provides a comprehensive set of financial resources that range from investment and company information to personal financial management tools. Free tools are provided to help users manage their personal finances as well as gather data, news and information for making informed investment decisions. Company conference call transcripts, analyst research reports and real-time streaming quotes are available through Yahoo! Finance for a fee. In 2006, Yahoo! Finance launched a free news video initiative that aggregates business news clips and delivers business-focused video news. Yahoo! Finance also added other new offerings during 2006, such as streaming quotes, interactive stock charts and enhanced stock message boards to its site.
Yahoo! Food launched in 2006 as an online food destination. The site contains free recipes, chef and restaurant information, food video segments and select blogs dedicated to food topics. Content is provided by recognized authorities and personalities in the food space and by users through recipe submissions, postings and reviews.
Yahoo! Tech launched in 2006 and offers users a range of free information on consumer electronics including product comparisons, consumer reviews and Hook Me Up, a streaming video product that evaluates consumer electronics.
Yahoo! Health is a comprehensive healthcare destination. Yahoo! Health provides free information on healthy living, medical conditions clinical trials, diet tools and drugs. The site contains online community tools, complete with groups focused on health topics, as well as blogs provided by recognized experts.
Entertainment
Yahoo! Sports provides a fast, live and interactive online experience for sports fans, including original fantasy games, up-to-the-minute news, real-time statistics and scoring, broadcast programming, integrated shopping, and an online sports community. Yahoo! Sports has content and marketing relationships with professional sports organizations and media outlets, including the National Basketball Association, Player’s Inc., Major League Baseball Players’ Association, Sports Illustrated Interactive, Stats, Inc. and the Associated Press. Yahoo! Sports also offers fee-based fantasy games, real-time statistical trackers and live sports audio broadcasts. In 2006, Yahoo! Sports entered into a partnership with the National Football League (NFL) to launch a subscription service to broadcast live NFL games to international users. In addition, the property broadened its free video content to fantasy users by launching a weekly Fantasy Football Live show.
Yahoo! Music offers a selection of free services, including streaming audio, the Internet’s collection of music videos, Internet radio, exclusive artist features and music news. Yahoo! Music also offers fee-based music services, including premium Internet radio and music subscription services. Nissan Live Sets is an offering of artist features, incorporating original artist performances with social networking elements, allowing users to submit photos, blog and interact with the artists. Yahoo! Music also promotes user generated content through programs such as Get Your Freak On, where fans can submit their own videos of their favorite artists and Yahoo! Music edits together the clips. With a library of approximately two million songs, the Yahoo! Music Unlimited (YMU) service is available to users for a monthly or annual subscription fee. With YMU users can build personalized music libraries, transfer tracks to portable devices, purchase permanent downloads, access commercial-free Internet radio stations, develop personalized music recommendations based on ratings and musical tastes, as well as share and discover music with friends through Yahoo! Messenger.
Yahoo! Movies and Yahoo! TV offer free entertainment services which include compelling and exclusive video content such as trailers, clips and never-before-seen extras, entertainment news, photo galleries, and reviews. Yahoo! Movies features paid-for film promotions for major movie studios, including Disney, Sony, Warner Bros., Universal and Fox. Yahoo! Movies also provides coverage of the Oscars and other Red Carpet events. Yahoo! TV partners with television networks, producers and content creators to provide users an experience with their favorite programs including a comprehensive guide to Fall TV which features exclusive full-length episodes and clips of the season’s hottest shows. Yahoo! TV partners with Mark Burnett Productions to produce and host ‘The Apprentice’ Web site on Yahoo! TV. Releases for 2006 included ‘THE 9’, a daily collection of content on the Internet, packaged in a format for viewers to get a download of what’s hot on the Web every weekday morning. It also launched the Talent Show, an eight week competition to discover original talent on the Internet and to bring original user generated video content to its users.
Yahoo! Games offers free classic board, card, arcade and word games along with downloadable games, game strategy guides, shopping guides, gaming news, tournaments, leagues and reviews on computer and console videogames. Its integration of games with Yahoo! Messenger allows users to see what games their friends are playing and join the game through Yahoo! Messenger. Yahoo! Games also offers a range of fee-based premium game downloads.
Yahoo! Kids, formerly known as Yahooligans, is a free entertainment and educational Internet guide designed for children ages six to twelve. Yahoo! Kids offerings include games, reference materials and movie information. In 2006, Yahoo! Kids expanded its content to include a ‘study zone’ section with resources for classroom and after class exploration.
Communications, Communities and Front Doors
The company’s Communications, Communities and Front Doors offerings provide a range of communication services to users and small businesses, including those that extend a range of Yahoo! services beyond the browser and across a range of devices and through its access alliances. It offers services free of charge to its users and also provides its services on a fee or subscription basis. Its offerings include Communications — Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger with Voice; Communities — Yahoo! Communities and Yahoo! Photos; and Front Doors — Yahoo! Front Page and My Yahoo!.
Communications
Yahoo! Mail is a free global service available in approximately 20 languages that provides users with an e-mail experience, including spam and virus protection, significant free storage and attachment size capacity, advanced search capabilities, and address book functionality. In addition to its basic e-mail service, for a subscription fee it offers Yahoo! Mail Plus, a mail service providing a range of features, including personalized spam filter, additional storage capacity, graphical ad blocker, and personalized stationery.
The Yahoo! Messenger with Voice instant messaging (IM) service provides a free, interactive and personalized way for people to connect and share experiences with their friends, family and colleagues in real time. Yahoo! Messenger’s communications suite integrates Yahoo! services, including Games, Music, Photos, and Search. Yahoo! Messenger allows users to stay connected to each other through text IM, e-mail, video or mobile messaging. In 2006, the company launched a version of IM, which connects users of Yahoo! Messenger and MSN Messenger to create IM community in the world. In addition, the new version of Yahoo! Messenger offers enhanced voice calling capabilities, allowing calls to and from traditional and mobile phones. In 2006, the company introduced custom plug-ins, which are free mini applications that users can add to their IM to make it personalized and interactive.
Communities
Yahoo! Communities helps users build and manage identity and relationships, and includes properties such as Groups, 360º, Message Boards and Photos. Yahoo! 360º is a free service providing users with an integrated experience, bringing together communications, content and community services such as Yahoo! Messenger, Yahoo! Photos, Yahoo! Music and Yahoo! Groups with sharing tools for recommending favorite movies, restaurants, and music. Yahoo! Communities provides users with the opportunity to discover, connect and interact with other users who share similar interests and ideas.
Yahoo! Photos enables for people to upload, store and share their photos for free. In 2006, the company launched the limited beta of Yahoo! Photos which offers desktop-like functionality, including drag-and-drop organization, tagging, comments and advanced search capabilities. Users can also order prints and photo gifts as a premium service and pick-up their prints in one hour from their local Target store.
Front Doors
Yahoo! Front Page (www.yahoo.com) serves as a free navigation hub and entry point into the Yahoo! Properties. It has the ability to perform an Internet search, read the latest news, link to Yahoo! Web sites in the Yahoo! Properties, and view promotions from Yahoo!’s advertisers.
My Yahoo! is the company’s free, personalized Web information service that allows registered members to create a personal profile and organizes and delivers information of personal interest to the user through a user-customized interface. The My Yahoo! platform allows it to deliver targeted advertising and transaction-based services on behalf of its advertisers and partners.
Connected Life
Yahoo!’s Connected Life group includes the company’s mobile, co-branded broadband, digital home and PC desktop services. The Connected Life group offers services designed to give consumers access to integrated Yahoo! content and communities across a range of Internet-enabled devices, including mobile devices, televisions and the PC desktop.
Yahoo! Mobile — Yahoo! Mobile focuses on extending consumers’ Internet communities and personalized content to their mobile phones. In 2006, Yahoo! extended the company’s offerings in mobile services through a range of new partnerships and product launches. In 2006, Yahoo! launched a number of new ways for consumers to access their Yahoo! services, including Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Mobile Web, and Yahoo! Go for Mobile. Through relationships with mobile operators and device manufacturers, Yahoo! is able to bring a range of services into consumers’ hands. Consumers in various countries throughout the world can access Yahoo!’s mobile services such as Yahoo! Go for Mobile, Yahoo! Mobile Web, Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger.
Yahoo! has also developed advertising opportunities on mobile devices. Yahoo! has launched pilot programs for mobile sponsored search in Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In November 2006, Yahoo! launched a beta version of its display advertising platform for the Yahoo! Mobile Web service in the United States.
Yahoo! Broadband: Yahoo! has partnered with broadband Internet access providers to provide a suite of Internet services for customers of these partner Internet access service offerings. It has strategic partnerships with AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications, Inc. in the United States, an ongoing Internet access partnership with BT Telecommunications PLC in the United Kingdom and Rogers Cable, Inc. (Rogers) in Canada and have entered into a partnership with Telecom New Zealand.
Yahoo! Digital Home: The Yahoo! Digital Home initiative focuses on delivering Yahoo! content and personalized information through user interfaces designed for viewing on the television or other devices. With products like Yahoo! Go for TV, Yahoo! Digital Home is building a platform that would deliver various forms of Web content (music, videos, and photos) to the television. Yahoo! is also working with partners to develop applications for emerging digital home technology such as AT&T’s IPTV based Uverse product offering and AT&T Homezone which combines satellite TV programming, communications features and high speed Internet in one integrated receiver. Other Yahoo! Digital Home applications such as the integration of Yahoo! Fantasy Sports deliver contextual Internet content.
Yahoo! PC Desktop: Yahoo! PC Desktop services enables users to keep up-to-date on and to interact with their Yahoo! services and other Internet based information on PC desktop without using an Internet browser application. Yahoo! Widgets is a platform that allows consumers to access approximately 4,000 lightweight applications that might reside on a user’s PC desktop to perform a range of tasks and provide access to an array of information.
GEOGRAPHIC AREAS
The company’s principal geographies are the United States and International. It provides services in approximately 20 languages in 20 countries, regions and territories, including localized versions of Yahoo! in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Northern Europe and Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, Sweden), Russia, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and Ireland, and the United States. It also provides point-of-entry services through Yahoo! Asia (its portal to Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam), Yahoo! Chinese (United States Chinese language site), Yahoo! Telemundo (United States Hispanic site), Yahoo! Canada en français (French Canadian site) and Yahoo! en Català (part of Yahoo! Spain’s Catalan language offerings).
Alliances And Partnerships In 2006
The company has formed a strategic partnership with Seven Network Limited, a media company in Australia, to combine its Australian Internet business with their media and entertainment content.
The company combined its U.S. Hispanic business with Telemundo, a U.S. Spanish-language television network, creating a platform for advertisers to reach a large and engaged U.S. Hispanic audience.
The company has entered into an agreement with Hewlett Packard Company to offer Yahoo! Services, including Yahoo! Front Page, Yahoo! Search and a co-branded toolbar on HP’s consumer personal computers in the U.S. and Europe.
The company has entered into an agreement with Acer, Inc. to offer Yahoo! Services, including Yahoo! Search, a co-branded Yahoo! Front page and toolbar on Acer’s consumer personal computers worldwide.
The company has entered into new and expanded agreements to distribute its mobile offerings, including Yahoo! Search and Yahoo! Go for Mobile services onto mobile devices, including Research in Motion’s Blackberry devices and certain Motorola mobile devices.
The company has formed a strategic partnership with eBay, making Yahoo! the exclusive provider of graphical advertising and complementary search advertising on eBay’s U.S. Web site.
The company has formed a strategic partnership with a consortium of approximately 150 daily U.S. newspapers to offer search, display and classified advertising to consumers in the communities where they live and work.
The company has invested in Right Media, Inc., an online advertising exchange providing Yahoo! with another marketplace for its non-premium inventory.
SALES
In the United States the company’s sales operations are concentrated primarily in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Hillsboro, the Los Angeles area, Miami, New York, San Francisco, and Sunnyvale.
CUSTOMERS
The company serves two customer-focused groups, the Audience Group and the Advertiser & Publisher Group.
COMPETITION
The company’s principal competitors include Google Inc., Microsoft Corporation and Time Warner’s America Online business.
History
Yahoo!, Inc. was founded in 1994 by David Filo and Jerry Yang.
