Google yanks open-source project after copyright complaint    
May 5, 2008
Source: Google

Google has taken down an open-source project called CoreAVC -for- Linux it had hosted on its Web site. 

Google didn't share details, but said on the project site that it removed CoreAVC-for-Linux from its Google Code site after receiving a complaint under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). CoreAVC itself is proprietary software for Windows supplied by a company called Core Codec. The software can play video encoded with the H.264 standard. 

According to a cached version of the Google Code page, CoreAVC- for -Linux provides patches to open-source media player software such as MPlayer or MythTV that enable them to use the CoreAVC software on Linux. In other words, it's for programs that connect to the CoreAVC software but doesn't actually include CoreAVC itself. It's not yet clear who filed the DMCA complaint. 

The DMCA's Safe Harbor provision protects a Web site from liability for users' actions as long as the site's operator--in this case Google-- fulfills requirements such as removing infringing material once notified by rights holders. 

CoreCodec appears to be a company that's got some involvement with the opens-source programming philosophy. According to the CoreCodec Web site, "Our philosophy is to (use) open source when 
appropriate, and when we do choose to close source a product, we strive to open as much of it as possible for third-party access." 

Yang betting on Y!Open to save Yahoo 
May 5 , 2008 
SOURCE: TNN

Yahoo employees, co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang asked his troops to redouble their efforts and to focus on executing what he called the most important transition in the company's history. It was the expected post-game motivational speech after declining to take Microsoft $33 per share offer. 

On Monday Yang, will face some irate investors and employees. The stock is expected to head south at the market open. He will need to provide more evidence than slideware about doubling operating cash 
flow in three years that Yahoo has a plan to grow revenue and profits ahead of competitors. 

Yahoo co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo flew up to Seattle to meet with Steve Ballmer and Kevin Johnson but rejected Microsoft's $33 per share offer.In the note, Yang mentioned the exclamation point in Yahoo's name (we leave off the "!" in references to Yahoo!) and looking forward to the future: there's a reason why we're the only fortune 500 company with an exclamation point at the end of our name, and now is the time to demonstrate what that exclamation point stands for.

I am intrigued by the rendezvous of the most important transition in company history and the exclamation point. Yang appears to acknowledge that Yahoo hasn't fully earned an exclamation point 
after its name, and his memo wasn't explicit on what the most important transition entailed. 

What would it take for Yahoo to reach its manifest destiny, to put the exclamation point in bold, and get rid of the "struggling" label on its forehead? It's not going to come from selling search ads. Google is 
lapping Yahoo, and Microsoft is highly motivated to reinvigorate its efforts sans Yahoo. 

Yahoo and Google are talking about a deal in which Google would sell search ads on Yahoo's site, which could generate incremental revenue for both. Google's return on search ads is about 60 percent to 70 percent more that what Yahoo gets via its search ad serving.

This deal might have trouble getting past regulators, but it signals that Yahoo is willing to cede search ads to Google. How long before it cedes display ads to Google? Probably never, especially since 
regulators would balk at this move and Yahoo has built what is viewed as a solid ad platform. One issue is whether Yahoo can retain the talent to sell ads and to evolve its technology.

My guess is that Yang and company hope to earn the exclamation point with a new platform that adds a social dimension to its services. This transition involves inserting a Facebook-like social graph into 
the core of Yahoo's platform and making it available to any application from Yahoo or third parties. In a note to the troops this evening, Yang wrote:

"We'll continue to execute on our plan -- making your Internet experience as personal, relevant, open and social as possible, serving advertisers so well they insist on working with us, and opening up Yahoo! in a way that developers dream of."Last month, Yahoo CTO Ari Balogh outlined what he called Y!Open, following a sneak peek of the concept by Yang at CES in January. 

During his CES sneak peek, Yang demoed a scenario of planning a dinner for friends in a future version of Yahoo. You can drag the thread of an email conversation into a map, and the profiles of those on the 
e-mail string are surfaced, noting preferences (for food in this case) and suggesting appropriate restaurants in the area. Balogh laid out the Y!Open challenge in his Web 2.0 Expo keynote:

"We are taking open to a whole other place. We are rewiring Yahoo from the inside out with a developer platform that will open up the assets of Yahoo in a way never done before, making the consumer experience social throughout and providing hooks to developers." 

He noted that Yahoo has 10 billion latent connections across its 500 million users and properties, such as e-mail, instant messenger, and fantasy sports. The Yahoo front page, Mail, Flickr and other properties will be wired up with a social graph. For example, the Yahoo Mail page will surface notifications relevant to users and the experience will be 
contextualized.

Will Y!Open prove that the company and its leadership deserve the exclamation point? Balogh told me that the rewired Yahoo, which is slated to trickle out this year, will have a material impact on Yahoo's 
page growth and time spent on the site, resulting in increased revenue. It was baked into the calculations projecting a doubling of its operating cash flow from $1.9 billion to $3.7 billion in a three-year span.

However, Y!Open is a major technical and marketing challenge. "We have to replumb Yahoo to use a single profile and create feeds, a way to consume feeds and Web services APIs and to layer those 
mechanisms into the platform," Balogh said. "The goal is nothing short of creating the best developer environment for creating Internet applications across the Web." Y!Open is the right move strategically, but it's a long way in Web time from the exclamation point. 

If Yahoo's chief executive expects to have credibility, render shareholder value, keep the company independent, prevent the exclamation point from falling off the brand, and maintain his current job, he had better hope that Y!Open comes sooner than later and is a massive success. 

Microsoft may seek other deals to fight Google    
May 5, 2008 
SOURCE: REUTERS

Microsoft Corp could seek a variety of deals after walking away from Yahoo Inc, but few would be comprehensive enough to let it challenge Google Inc's domination of online advertising. 

When Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer called off talks with Yahoo on Saturday after the Web company rejected his $47.5 billion offer, he gave up what he and investors saw as the fastest way to 
grow quickly in advertising and online services to take on market leader Google. 

"Ultimately, our goal is to build the industry-leading business in search, online advertising, media, and social networking," Ballmer wrote in a Saturday letter to employees. "Although the acquisition of Yahoo would have accelerated our ability to deliver on our strategy in advertising and online services, I remain confident that we can achieve our goals without Yahoo," Ballmer wrote. 

Ballmer said Microsoft could go it alone, but a likelier scenario would be to use some of the cash it dangled in front of Yahoo to make smaller acquisitions or strike up partnerships. It could form a tie-up with Time Warner Inc's AOL unit or News Corp's Fox Interactive Media unit, which includes MySpace, to draw advertising to its own Web properties. 

AOL executives contacted Microsoft about a possible tie-up last month after Ballmer set a three-week deadline for Yahoo to agree to a deal or face a hostile battle, a person briefed on those discussions said on Sunday. News Corp has also reached out to Microsoft in recent weeks to explore possibilities, including bidding for Yahoo jointly, sources previously said. 

An AOL official was not immediately available for comment. "A partnership with or acquisition of News Corp's Internet activities or AOL would be a start" in leapfrogging Google, said Peter Misek, an analyst 
who follows Microsoft for Canaccord Adams. Google sites had about 590 million unique visitors in December, while Microsoft sites had 540 million and Yahoo's had 485 million, comScore data show. 

By comparison, Time Warner properties, including AOL, had only 274 million visitors, and Fox Interactive Media sites had 158 million visitors. Arguably, a Microsoft partnership with AOL or FIM would not bring the same numbers as a Microsoft-Yahoo combine would. 

Microsoft could also go on a shopping spree, buying start-ups that build sophisticated search and online advertising platforms to cobble together a challenge to Google, said Peter Falvey, a banker at 
Revolution Partners, a technology-focused investment bank. "They could buy a lot of interesting start-ups and use their marketing muscle," Falvey said. 

But none of these options would provide Microsoft the scale it needs to compete effectively against Google. "Little things like buying Digg would not move the needle for Microsoft," said Todd Greenwald, an analyst at Nollenberger Capital Partners, referring to a Web site that lets people submit and share news stories, videos and other files online.