Posted September 2nd, 2008 at 3:00 pm by Laurie Briggs, Yahoo! Pride
No Comments » / Filed in: Working at Yahoo!
Today, the Human Rights Campaign — the country’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality — released its seventh annual Corporate Equality Index, which evaluates businesses on a scale from 0 to 100 percent on their treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees, consumers and investors.
For the second year in a row, Yahoo! received a perfect 100% rating.
We are thrilled about receiving another 100% rating from HRC. It is proof, once again, that Yahoo! is committed to maintaining a diverse workforce. To see the full report, click here.
And as all Yahoos know, our commitment doesn’t stop at the edge of our campuses. Our tens of millions of LGBT consumers around the world are extraordinarily important to us and we are constantly seeking ways to enhance their experiences on pride.yahoo.com and across our entire network.
This year, 259 major U.S. companies earned a 100%, up from 195 last year –- an increase of one third. We are pleased to be a part of this large –- and growing –- group of companies, and would like to congratulate all the other companies who scored the top ranking from HRC.
Laurie Briggs
Co-chair of Yahoo! Pride
Tagged: Working at Yahoo!, yahoo! pride
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Posted August 27th, 2008 at 3:50 pm by Alan Warms, Yahoo! News
3 Comments » / Filed in: Trends & News
Ever wanted to be a political pundit and call the shots on how the presidential election will play out? Ever wanted to “get behind the numbers” and understand why certain states are leaning this way or that? With the launch of our new and improved General Election Political Dashboard, you too can be the next James Carville. We’re excited about the launch and why not? More than 50% of voters now get their election news and information online — and more of them from Yahoo! News than anywhere else!
For the General Election, we’ve kept all of the cool features from the Primary Political Dashboard –- plus some new bells and whistles sure to enthrall the political junkie in all of us. At a glance, users still can see national and state poll averages and market predictions on the presidential prospects for Barack Obama and John McCain. Also, users can check out a new form of polling… candidate search results and popular search terms for each candidate. (It’s no surprise the most commonly search words for Barack Obama in recent days has been Joe Biden, but Jill Biden also has seen a big spike.) Users then can quickly scroll over each state to get a snapshot on how candidates are doing, or they can click on specific state to get key local headlines, state-wide searches, and voter demographic breakdowns. They also can click on the candidate images to pull up bios and campaign fund-raising totals. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
The new dashboard also includes a bevy of “Most Blogged About” election topics –- the first time BuzzTracker has been integrated into a Yahoo! News tool (stay tuned for more) — and gives users the chance to check out not only high-level blogs from a national standpoint, but also blogs from individual states. Who knew New Hampshire had so many bloggers writing about the election?
The “Create Your Scenario” tool allows anyone to make a call on every state based on the dashboard content and publish that content using a permalink in an email or blog. Essentially, we’ve put the power of the political pundits in your hands. Will Ohio go to Obama or McCain? Will Florida go blue or stay red? Take a stab at the electoral college and see how the numbers add up (remember: 270 electoral votes are needed to win the White House.) For inspiration, you can view celebrity scenarios (check out Arianna Huffington’s picks) and current and past election results. You can also compare your results to others to see where differences reside!
This Presidential Election truly marks a turning point — where distribution of information and content is no longer controlled by a few networks but rather can be created, consumed, and mashed up by the voters themselves. The Political Dashboard has been developed with you, the voter, in mind.
Have fun and enjoy the new features as we head into final few months of this historic election.
Alan Warms
Vice President and General Manager, Yahoo! News, Tech and Education
Tagged: elections, yahoo! news
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Posted August 27th, 2008 at 9:50 am by Aaron Task, Tech Ticker
No Comments » / Filed in: Behind the Scenes
I’ve had the most amazing experience the past 12 days in Seoul, Korea.
The highlight, of course, was the Yahoo! exclusive interview with South Korean President Myung-bak Lee. This was a historic event as it was President Lee’s first interview with an online news organization and the first foreign head of state ever interviewed by Yahoo! News.
So how did all of this come about? The success of Yahoo! News’ interview of President Bush (in partnership with Politico) got the wheels turning. Interviewing President Bush spurred discussions within Yahoo! over which other world leaders we could get to sit down with us. I’m eternally indebted to Yahoo! Korea CEO James Kim, whose entire team did a tremendous job of pursuing the issue with the Blue House and then executing a highly complex operation in a very short period of time.
It was a great honor for me to get to go to the Blue House, the President’s residence, and meet with President Lee, who was very gracious and generous with his time. I asked President Lee questions about a variety of topics, from the ultra-serious issue of relations with North Korea to lighter fare such as the success of South Korea’s Olympians. I also asked a question from a user after Y! Korea asked for submissions from its users (there were literally 1000s to choose from). The discussion of North-South relations was particularly relevant for me since my father is a Korean War veteran.
One of the other highlights of my trip to Korea was a visit to the DMZ, which is an amazing place on many levels. The DMZ is both a literal and figurative ‘front line’ for a war that technically isn’t over, but it’s also a place where sworn enemies have figured out a way to coexist –- and even partner in a joint economic development project in the area. That gives me some hope President Lee will be right when he expressed confidence reunification will occur in his lifetime — and possibly suddenly as was the case with the reunification of Germany.
As for the rest of my trip, I was struck by the advanced technology available to the “average” Korean. From video conferencing on cell phones, to GPS devices that double as TVs to high-speed Internet access anywhere/anytime, Korea is one of the world’s most wired countries. I got insights on the scene from several tech industry executives and also met the world champion Starcraft player (video games are a huge spectator sport in Korea) — stay tuned to “Tech Ticker” for additional clips from those interviews.
Finally, I was blown away by the incredible hospitality and generosity of the people I met. Everyone I met was amazingly friendly and helpful — from colleagues at Yahoo! to local CEOs to a friend of a friend’s brother who took a day off to show me around Seoul, to the little girl at the Korean Folk Village who wanted to practice her English.
My only regret is I didn’t get to try live octopus (a local delicacy), but apparently it’s not in season. Next time!
Aaron Task
Correspondent, Yahoo! Tech Ticker
Tagged: tech ticker, yahoo! news
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Posted August 25th, 2008 at 9:47 am by Nicki Dugan, Blog Editor
3 Comments » / Filed in: Conferences/Events
In a battle for universal search engine foosball domination, Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft competed in a clash of the titans at SES San Jose. Daniel Wong and Jacob Rosenberg represented Yahoo! in the doubles tournament.
In the first round, Yahoo! played Microsoft in a game to 7 points. Microsoft was unprepared for Jake’s superior passing and quick snake shot. They were unable to get past Daniel’s brilliant defense. Yahoo! beat Microsoft 7-1.
In the next round, Yahoo! played Google in a game to 7 points. Google’s team put up a valiant effort, but they too were beaten easily in a final score of 7-0.
Next up was the Google vs. Microsoft match. Google easily beat Microsoft 7-0.
For the final round, Yahoo! played Google for the Foosball Trophy. It was a best of 3 series, with each game played to 5 points. The Google fans started to crowd around the table, and tried to motivate their team with cheers. However, the Google cheering soon turned to silence once the Yahoo! team started to dominate the scoring. Google’s team couldn’t keep up with the fast paced passing and scoring from Yahoo! Yahoo beat Google 5-2.
Game 2 of the Finals was pretty much more of the same barrage from Team Yahoo!. The final score for Game 2 was 5-2 in favor of Yahoo!.
Final results:
- 1st place - Yahoo!
- 2nd place - Google
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3rd place - Microsoft
Best quote of the day was from the Microsoft team after Jake scored the first goal on them: “What was that? Is he spinning?” Jake’s snake shot was so fast that they couldn’t tell how he scored. :)
Oh, and our search engine competes pretty well, too. For more information on how Yahoo! fared in the SES Awards, head over to Yahoo! Search Blog.
Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor
Tagged: conference, foosball, yahoo! search
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Posted August 20th, 2008 at 11:06 am by Patrick Barry, Yahoo! Connected TV
6 Comments » / Filed in: Trends & News
Everyone loves their TVs. So much so that over 37 million units were sold in North America in 2007. But how much more would you love your TV if you could monitor your eBay auctions, keep tabs on the 5-day weather forecast, and check the score of the Giants game — all at the same time you are watching the new season of “ER”? That’s just an example of what you could do with some of the exciting innovations coming out of Yahoo!’s Connected TV group.
At today’s Intel Developer Forum, Yahoo! and Intel announced the Widget Channel, the first in a series of initiatives that will bring what Yahoo! calls the “Cinematic Internet” even closer to living rooms across America.
The Widget Channel is a television application framework optimized for TV and related consumer electronics devices that use the Intel Architecture. The Widget Channel will be powered by the Yahoo! Widget Engine, an applications platform that will enable TV viewers to interact with and enjoy a rich set of TV Widgets, or small Internet applications designed to complement and enhance the traditional TV watching experience and bring content, information and community features available on the Internet within easy reach of your remote control.
TV Widgets will introduce a new way of interacting with your television. Just imagine that you are watching Dancing With the Stars and you get a phone call from your friend about new Flickr photos they uploaded. But the new season of your favorite reality show has just started, and you don’t want to miss any of the action. You don’t have to go anywhere to view the Flickr album. With a click of your remote, you can bring up the TV Widget dock at the bottom of your TV screen. Your favorite episode of Dancing With the Stars is still viewable, so you can watch your show uninterrupted and check out the new pictures your friend is so eager for you to see.
With the Cinematic Internet, Yahoo! will help to create and enable the ecosystem of Internet-connected TV, which will benefit consumers, device makers, advertisers and publishers. By combining the Internet’s benefits of openness, community and personalization with the broadcast values of dependability and familiarity of TV, we believe this combination will transform traditional TV into something bigger, better, and more exciting for users, content providers and equipment manufacturers—and make Yahoo! a starting point on the TV.
For more information, go visit http://connectedtv.yahoo.com/.
Patrick Barry
VP of Yahoo! Connected TV
Tagged: connected life, connected tv, intel, news
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Posted August 18th, 2008 at 8:26 pm by Tapan Bhat, Front Doors
15 Comments » / Filed in: Trends & News
In February, we introduced Yahoo! Buzz as a new way for you to discover, vote for, and share the content and stories that matter most to you. You also got a say in what stories might be read by millions, with the voting power to potentially get your favorite content on the Yahoo! Front Page.
Today, six months and more than 5 million users later, we’re pleased to share that we’re opening Yahoo! Buzz up so that you can “buzz up” content from any publisher on the Web.
We started with about 100 publishing partners, which quickly grew to more than 400. Sites like Salon.com and GigaOm immediately saw an impact as their traffic soared when content climbed up the list and got selected for Yahoo.com. Now that benefit can come to any site online, making it possible to give as much visibility to extraordinary content from an obscure site as major news stories from big publishers.
What does this mean for you? Anything you find on the Web is now buzzable. Any of the Web’s best current event stories, gossip, photos, videos and more can be submitted and shared on Yahoo! Buzz. You’ve already seen the “Buzz Up” buttons on many of your favorite sites, including New York Times, Us Weekly and BoingBoing. Now, as any site is able to add our button, you’ll have even more places to buzz to your heart’s content. And if you don’t see that button on a Web story you just have to share, you can submit a story right on Yahoo! Buzz. Like always, the more unique and compelling the story, the better chance your story of choice will buzz up to the Yahoo! homepage. Nice!
And for anyone publishing Web content that was not part of our beta testing, today we hope you will join Yahoo! Buzz and let our audience (of more then half a billion people!) buzz up your content, too. Joining is as simple. Just grab code from our Buttons page and paste it into your website or blog.
Thank you for continuing to make Yahoo! the place you start your day to find and share the most popular stories and videos on the Internet. We have more to come for Buzz, so stay tuned. But in the meantime: keep on buzzing!
Tapan Bhat
Senior Vice President of Front Doors, Communities and Network Services
P.S. Now that you have a Web full of info to buzz, check out the My Buzz Activity page that allows you to keep track of and share what you’ve buzzed up or down, or what you buzzed before anyone else did.
Tagged: buzz, news
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Posted August 15th, 2008 at 5:10 pm by Nicki Dugan, Blog Editor
No Comments » / Filed in: Product Pulse, Uncategorized
What’s with August 15th and creature hoaxes? Thirty one years, a SETI scientist in search of extraterrestrial life received a radio signal from deep space… but he could never detect it again. Today, two guys claim to be in possession of a bona fide Bigfoot carcass… but sounds like the DNA sample was part human but mostly possum. Ok, no joke, here’s what we tracked down this week:
- Olympic redux:
If you missed last night’s one-two punch from the American gymnastics team (probably because you were getting eight hours of sleep as I piled on more Olympics-induced sleep deprivation), Yahoo! Search has come up with a tool that lets you get photo highlights of the biggest moments of the Games. Just go to Yahoo! Image Search, type “Olympics” plus an athlete’s name or a sport, and you’ll get an up-to-date photo carousel of images from Yahoo! Sports’ coverage. You can just toggle through the various images without leaving the page. So you can stay on top of the Games without bags under your eyes. More here.
- Surfing Safari: If you’re a Machead and you want the speed and helping hand of Yahoo! Search from your browser toolbar, go install the Inquisitor plug-in for Safari. After acquiring the software in May, we’ve been quietly sprucing it up with technology from Yahoo! Search BOSS to make searching faster. We also gave it a design and interface facelift. And finally, we sent it to a few Berlitz courses, and now it speaks eight new languages — Japanese, Korean, Traditional Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and German. Smarter, faster, and multilingual. Not bad for a few months. More here.
- Fire Eagle soars: The Web started out not really caring where you were. Now it seems like more and more services have found geographic religion. If only you had a digital switchboard that could update all of them with wherever you are — from state to neighborhood to street corner. Enter Fire Eagle, our new application for sharing, updating and managing your location information with Web services and mobile products. It also lets developers add location services to their applications. No more wandering clueless in a new city. No more missing out on a friend who’s just a block away. Check out some of the 50+ applications already running on Fire Eagle. More here.
Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.
Tagged: brickhouse, fire eagle, mac, Product Pulse, yahoo! search
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Posted August 14th, 2008 at 5:08 pm by Michael Samway, VP & Deputy General Counsel
1 Comment » / Filed in: Yahoo! For Good
It was just a few months ago we testified on the subject of Internet Freedom before a U.S. Senate subcommittee. At the hearing, one important question asked by Senators from both sides of the aisle involved the status of a collective human rights code of conduct for our industry. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), who chaired the hearing, closed the session by strongly encouraging the companies and human rights groups to reach agreement in short order. He actually said he hoped it could done in 48 hours! While we didn’t make the two-day deadline, not long after the hearing we achieved a significant collective milestone and reached agreement in principle on the core components of the code of conduct.
A few weeks ago, we received a letter from Senators Durbin and Tom Coburn (R – Okla.), asking for a further update on where Yahoo! and others were in developing the code of conduct. They urged companies not to wait until the code was finalized before taking action to safeguard user privacy and freedom of expression, something we’ve been deeply committed to at Yahoo!. As we said at the hearing, we’re ready now and we’ve been working to match our actions with our words.
You can read our response to the senators here, but let me recap a few key points:
- After 18 months of intensive effort to develop a global code, we’ve reached a major step with industry counterparts, human rights advocates, academics, investors, and others. We’ve all agreed to the core components of the code, which consist of principles of freedom of expression and privacy, implementation guidelines, and a governance, accountability and learning framework. Now it’s a matter of each participant reviewing the agreement for final approval. Again, we’re ready at Yahoo! to make this initiative a reality.
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We are optimistic we will collectively launch the initiative this Fall.
- Yahoo! hasn’t been waiting for a final code to take multiple actions on the human rights front. In addition to appealing to the State Department for their support in diplomatic efforts, we have:
- Established a human rights fund to assist political dissidents and their families;
- Implemented a human rights assessment as we explore doing business challenging markets and established a dedicated business and human rights program within the company; and
- Founded academic fellowships at Stanford and Georgetown to advance free expression and global values.
A year and a half may seem like a long time for those tapping their feet in anticipation of an industry code of conduct. We understand. We also believe it’s important to recognize the complexity of this dynamic process. We didn’t want to draft a pledge we’d all simply sign and move on. We needed to craft something meaningful that left everyone independently accountable to their pledge to do the right thing around free expression and privacy. We also faced the natural challenges drafting principles and guidelines for businesses where the industry and technology landscape regularly and often dramatically changes and evolves. We also agreed — companies and human rights groups alike — that we needed to include room for new participants, technologies, and challenges.
We’ve all also worked carefully in crafting the principles, implementation guidelines, and accountability and learning framework to be sure this isn’t a code pointing at or strictly about China. This is much broader, as it should be. We are in agreement across companies and human rights organizations that this initiative will be global in scope. We’re also hopeful inside and outside Yahoo! that this collective human rights code of conduct will be a model initiative showing the strength of collaboration in the field of business and human rights.
Michael Samway
VP & Deputy General Counsel
Tagged: human rights, public policy, Yahoo! For Good
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Posted August 13th, 2008 at 2:37 pm by Nicki Dugan, Blog Editor
5 Comments » / Filed in: Those Crazy Yahoos, Video
When you think Brazil, you might think large country, long river, giant rainforests, that huge statue (one of the Seven Wonders, in fact), major soccer stars, and colossal Carnival festivities. It seems like everything is big and bold.
When you operate in this country, the fifth largest in the world, you have to go big (and maybe even a little bit crazy) to get noticed. That’s why Yahoo! Brazil is producing a lunar eclipse. That’s right. This Saturday night, Brazilians will be treated to a partial eclipse of the moon, courtesy of Yahoo! Brazil.
The team down there is partnering with Celestial Marketing, an American company that has expertise in eclipse productions and cosmic phenomena, to pull the Earth ever so slightly to create a penumbral shadow on the moon. They’re also working with Brazilian astronaut Marcos Pontes to get Brazilians fired up about it. The eclipse will be broadcast on Yahoo! Brazil and those watching in the streets can download special viewing cards.
What’s this all about? We’re told it’s in honor of a new phase that Yahoo! Brazil will enter. I guess all will be revealed on Saturday. But as they say in Brazil, “Nao subestime o roxo”… or never underestimate the purple.
Check out how amped up they are in São Paolo (and brush up on your Portuguese):
Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor
Tagged: Video, yahoo! brazil
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Posted August 12th, 2008 at 2:43 pm by Nicki Dugan, Blog Editor
5 Comments » / Filed in: Trends & News
Location informs so much about where we go, what we do, and who we see. As the Web continues to evolve beyond the browser -– to mobile phones, devices, desktop widgets, etc. –- where we are when we come in contact with the Web becomes more important. Imagine being able to walk around town, whip out your phone, and quickly find events, a great new restaurant, or even people nearby.
Enter Fire Eagle. Fire Eagle is like a switchboard that allows you to easily update, manage, and share your location information with Web services and mobile products. One of the coolest things about Fire Eagle is how it helps you control your location information. You choose which Fire Eagle applications you want to share your information with and how much detail you want to share about where you are –- as broad as country or state, to as detailed as zip code or cross streets, and everything in between.
As a platform, Fire Eagle lets developers easily create location-enhanced applications for you — maps, driving directions, local weather, traffic, nearby friends, exchange rates, time zones, local radio, public holidays –- the list goes on and on. Since Fire Eagle launched in private beta in March, developers have signed up in droves and built some great apps. Go check out some staff picks now in the gallery.
Fire Eagle is about making everything on the Internet more useful, fun or interesting by adding the element of location. Start taking advantage of all the cool location-based services at http://fireeagle.yahoo.net.
Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor
P.S. - Fire Eagle was created out of our Yahoo! Brickhouse office in San Francisco. The Brickhouse team is holding a party to celebrate the launch on Thursday night, at 330 Ritch, and they would love for you to join them!
Tagged: brickhouse, fire eagle, news
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