Yahoo

Brand New Season, One Less Curse. Yahoo Fantasy Baseball Is Back!

By Guy Lake, Product Director, Fantasy Sports

It may only be January, but we at Yahoo Fantasy Sports know that the most passionate fantasy players out there are already eager to create their leagues and get started, so today we’re officially opening Fantasy Baseball season.

As in years past, we are the Official Fantasy Commissioner Game of MLB.com, giving players and fans all they need to dominate including video highlights, MLB “Game of the Day,” condensed games and all of the stats you could ever want. But there is so much more…

Yahoo Sports Fantasy Baseball Experts: Leading up to and throughout the baseball season, you can turn to Yahoo Sports for expert advice, mock drafts and ongoing fantasy tips for both season-long and daily fantasy. Experts like Andy Behrens, Brandon Funston, Dalton Del Don and Scott Pianowski will get you ready to dominate your draft with rankings, team-by-team previews, sleeper and bust picks and much more. But don’t stop there – we’ll keep you up to speed with waiver wire advice, emerging trends, recaps and reaction to breaking news so you can stay ahead of the competition in your league.
New Features: Each season we love to evolve our game and bring the fans what they’re asking for. New features this year will include a deeper player pool to draft from (10+ prospects for each team), Fearless Forecast videos, forecasting the week for players every Monday and, by popular request, you can now add players directly to IR slot from the waivers/free agents list. Finally, we will display batting order for every starting batter on team and match-up pages.
Yahoo Sports Fantasy App: Download the award winning Yahoo Sports Fantasy app where you can easily manage your entire season from draft until championship. This season, we’re adding weather data and improved research tools. For commissioners, we have already added 90% of our commish tools to the app and soon all commish tools will be available for mobile users. You won’t find this level of commissioner support on any other major fantasy app.
Yahoo Cup: Building off the success from football and basketball season, we’re bringing the season-long daily fantasy contest The Yahoo Cup to baseball. It’s free to enter, single entry, we’re giving out cash prizes every week throughout the season. Stay tuned for full details.
Champion of Champions: We’re bringing back our Champion of Champion contest this year to once again crown the best all around fantasy baseball player.
Yahoo Fantasy Video Features: This season, we’ll be producing a series of features that help fantasy users target top picks, sleepers and busts to keep them ahead of the game and win their fantasy baseball draft.

In addition, coming soon we will be producing a special mock draft among our fantasy and MLB experts. Stay tuned for more details!

This season our gurus will answer your questions via Facebook Live to help you draft and will continue guiding your journey to the top with weekly Q&As during the season. Our crew will also tackle the hottest topics in Fantasy Baseball on our weekly podcast.

With the pitchers and catchers report coming out on February 14, now is the time to sign-up for Yahoo Sports Fantasy Baseball and start prepping for the 2017 season.

Rivals.com Announces Live Show On National Signing Day

By Kyle McDoniel, Head of Global Sports Partnerships and Rivals.com

On Wednesday, February 1, Rivals.com, the foremost authority covering college football recruiting, will be hosting our first ever live show to recap one of the most important days of the year for thousands of high school football players around the country – National Signing Day (NSD).

From 6-7pm ET live from the Yahoo Studios in New York City, Rivals.com National Signing Day Live will feature national recruiting director Mike Farrell and the Rivals.com analysts who will be looking back on all of National Signing Day’s action. The live show will start with a countdown of the top five schools and the crowning of the school that we think has the best recruiting class as our National Recruiting Champion. The Rivals.com analyst team will then break down the winners and losers in each of the Power Five conferences, along with the biggest news of the day for each league. In addition, we will crown the coach that we think has had the most successful recruiting year as our National Recruiter of the Year, present the Mike Farrell awards and provide a preview of the 2018 recruiting class.

Starting at 8am ET, the team will be bringing you hourly updates along with immediate reactions to all of the biggest signings via Facebook Live and on our annual live NSD blog, our one-stop shop for every recruiting fan. There also will be a midday show recapping the morning’s biggest events and looking ahead to what’s on tap in the afternoon.

National Signing Day starts bright and early on February 1, so be sure to follow the entire Rivals.com team on our site, Twitter and Facebook Live.

What’s New On The Yahoo Homepage

By Tenni Theurer, Sr. Director Product Management for Yahoo Homepage and News

In 2016 we made updates to create a more consistent experience across Yahoo’s properties. Whether it was the Yahoo homepage, the Yahoo app, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Finance or Yahoo News, we put an emphasis on making it easier to find great content and engage with our robust community. This cleaner, more modern design laid the groundwork for more to come and today we’re introducing new updates to the Yahoo homepage in the US.

Your favorite Yahoo properties are now across the top of the page so it’s quicker to get to where you want to go. We’ve enhanced our personalization algorithms so your news feed is even more catered to your interests, allowing you to discover more of the stories you want to read. You’ll also notice that we’ve changed the layout to bring more focus to the content and made the search bar more prominent, so you get exactly the results you’re looking for.

On the right-hand side of each story, we’ve added a new sentiment analysis feature, so you can quickly see a summary of how the community is reacting and read the top reactions. This new feature allows you to easily gauge the sentiment of the community, share your opinion and read more engaging conversations.

Over the next few months we will continue to add more features and we’re excited to watch our community evolve. Head to https://yahoo.com to see the new features. The updates will be rolling out to our US users this morning.

Update January 31, 2017: We’ve rolled out these changes to the Yahoo homepage in the UK and Canada.

Down. Set. HUT! Yahoo Teams Up with Pizza Hut to Launch Squares Pick’em for the Big Game

By Brian Marshall, Senior Director of Yahoo Sports Product

The Big Game is almost here. As you prep your house for friends and family, don’t miss anything on your checklist. Tasty food? Check. Beverages? Check. Huge TV? Check. Squares sheet printed off for guests to fill out? Forget it! Yahoo Sports is here to save the day. Introducing the Yahoo Fantasy Sports Squares Pick’em game sponsored by Pizza Hut.

Squares Pick’em is a new take on a popular game-day tradition. Starting today, sports fans can sign up for the new Squares Pick’em game and easily fill out their grids through the Yahoo Fantasy app and desktop experience. After signing up, users can invite friends to pick Pizza Hut-themed boxes on a 10x10 grid. Each square equals a possible score at the end of every quarter of the football game. If the square you pick matches the score at the end of the quarter, you win ultimate bragging rights!

In 2016, the Super Bowl was one of the most visited days of the year on Yahoo Sports and fans spend nearly 30 billion minutes a year playing fantasy sports on Yahoo. Pizza Hut set a digital sales record during last year’s big game, as fans flocked to the brand’s variety of digital ordering options. This year, Pizza Hut will be featured in display, search and email advertising to drive sign ups for the Squares Pick’em game on Yahoo Sports. Yahoo will also promote the new game through the blogs Shutdown Corner, RotoArcade and additional NFL editorial.

Now, you no longer need to remember to print off the sheet of paper and fill it in by hand. With Yahoo Sports’ Squares Pick'em game, it’s easy for people to join in whether they’re attending your party or having their own across the country. Just remember, I call the corners!

Yahoo 2016 and Q4 Results

Yahoo News Announces Coverage Plans for the Inauguration of Donald J. Trump

By Megan Liberman, Editor in Chief, Yahoo News

On January 20, the world will watch as Donald J. Trump is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, following the most unconventional election in recent memory. Let Yahoo News be your guide to the weekend, as the country says goodbye to President Obama and ushers in a new administration.

Our Yahoo News political team will be on the ground in Washington, D.C., and beyond – at the swearing-in and the inaugural balls, inside the White House, at protest marches across the country and more. They’ll be there to capture all the big moments of this historic transition, examine the factors that shaped the election, analyze the Obama legacy and explore the ongoing issues that animate and divide our country. You can follow their up-to-the-minute reports, with images, video and social media, throughout the weekend on our 24/7 ScribbleLive blog. We will also have two full days of live-streamed coverage, led by Global News Anchor Katie Couric and National Political Columnist Matt Bai, with contributions from our colleagues at Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Style and Beauty offering insight into everything from the cost of the inauguration to first lady fashion.

Here’s just some of what you can expect to see:

Donald Trump’s America – In the weeks leading up to the inauguration, National Correspondent Holly Bailey visited towns and cities across the country for this multimedia feature package that includes original photography, video interviews and more. Bailey spoke to voters who had supported Trump in the election to see if they were still happy with their choice and optimistic about the future as the new administration takes shape.

Road Trip to the Women’s March on Washington – Beginning Friday, Yahoo Chief National Correspondent Lisa Belkin will be embedded with a diverse group of women from the red state of Kentucky as they take a road trip to Washington, D.C., for Saturday’s march. Belkin will be giving regular live updates from the road, reporting on the sights and sounds at the march and sharing reactions of the women during their walk from the Lincoln Memorial to the White House.

Live Video Programming:

FRIDAY: The Inauguration of Donald J. Trump – On Friday, Katie Couric, Matt Bai and Yahoo News and Finance Anchor Bianna Golodryga will be joined by an impressive lineup of guests, including Yahoo News correspondents Hunter Walker, Holly Bailey, Olivier Knox and Liz Goodwin in Washington, D.C., Lisa Belkin en route from Kentucky and more. We’ll be live streaming all the major moments, kicking off at 8:30am ET with unmoderated coverage of the service at St. John’s Church. Tune in for our two inauguration special reports:

10am ET: Just ahead of the inauguration, Katie Couric and Matt Bai will provide analysis and insight into the day’s most compelling storylines. We’ll hear from a diverse array of expert voices on a variety of issues, from the incoming president’s first 100 days to what Washington has learned, the president’s complex relationship with the press and more. Following the swearing-in and Trump’s inaugural address to the nation, we’ll go back to New York for final insights from Couric and Bai.
8pm ET: Katie Couric and Bianna Golodryga will be back for live primetime coverage of the inaugural balls, joined Yahoo Style’s Joe Zee recapping all the major fashion moments of the day. They’ll also look ahead to what Melania and Ivanka Trump may choose to wear for the evening, and reflect on first lady fashion in years past.

SATURDAY: The Women’s March on Washington – Starting at 10am ET, Katie Couric will be live from D.C., on the ground at the Women’s March. She’ll have roving interviews along the route with organizers, marchers and notable participants, as well as all the latest news of the day.

Inauguration Diaries – Yahoo News has enlisted a variety of participants – from fervent Trump supporters to marchers and protesters – to offer their perspectives. Through their written entries, photographs and video, these diarists will be taking readers and viewers behind the scenes of the weekend’s events.

Live Blog – Follow along with our 24/7 interactive ScribbleLive blog starting at 8am ET on Friday and running through Saturday. The blog will offer contributions from the Yahoo News and Politics team, including the latest up-to-the-minute updates from social media, with tweets, photos, snaps and more.

For all the latest real-time updates and a look at all of Yahoo’s coverage of the inauguration, visit our Yahoo inauguration coverage landing page.

Larry Fink CEO BlackRock, Jes Staley CEO Barclays, Tim Sloan CEO Wells Fargo, Sallie Krawcheck CEO Ellevest, Rob Manfred MLB Commissioner, and more at First-Ever Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit

By Andy Serwer, Editor in Chief, Yahoo Finance

On February 8, we’re hosting the first-ever Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit at our Yahoo office in New York City. This day-long conference will explore the critical questions and changes facing our economy and financial markets as we begin a new administration for the first time in eight years.

As a long-standing leading business news site, with an audience that spans from every-day investors to industry leaders, we at Yahoo Finance are uniquely positioned to explore all the ways in which this incoming administration will have an impact on our economy. We’re assembling some of the most dynamic minds in business, to help savvy investors – big and small – set their agendas for a new environment, as a new president takes office and a new Congress takes shape.

Among the confirmed participants are:

Larry Fink – Chairman & CEO, BlackRock
Tim Sloan – President & CEO, Wells Fargo
Jes Staley – Barclays, CEO
Rob Manfred – Commissioner, Major League Baseball
Sallie Krawcheck – CEO, Ellevest
Glenn Hutchins – Co-Founder, Silver Lake Partners
Liz Ann Sonders – Chief Investment Strategist, Charles Schwab
Mark Weinberger – Global Chairman & CEO, EY
Ian Bremmer – President, Eurasia Group
Daymond John – CEO & Founder, Fubu & Shark Tank Co-Host
Slava Rubin – Founder, Indiegogo
Charles Phillips – CEO, Infor
Greg Clark – CEO, Symantec
Jon Stein – CEO, Betterment
Morgan Housel – Partner, Collaborative Fund
Michael Batnick – Director of Research, Ritholtz Wealth Management
Sam Zell – Chairman, Equity Group Investments
Terry Tamminen – CEO, Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation

The conference will be live-streamed free of charge on Yahoo Finance, with tickets available for purchase to the general public. To purchase tickets, and for the latest updates on the All Markets Summit participants and agenda, please visit our Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit landing page.

Open Sourcing Screwdriver, Yahoo’s Continuous Delivery Build System for Dynamic Infrastructure

yahooeng:

By James Collins, Sr. Director, Developer Platforms and Services, and St. John Johnson, Principal Engineer
Continuous Delivery enables software development teams to move faster and adapt to users’ needs quicker by reducing the inherent friction associated with releasing software changes. Yahoo’s engineering has modernized as it has embraced Continuous Delivery as a strategy for improving product quality and engineering agility. All our active products deliver from commit to production with full automation and this has greatly improved Yahoo’s ability to deliver products.
Part of what enabled Yahoo to make Continuous Delivery at scale a reality was our improved build and release tooling. Now, we are open sourcing an adaptation of our code as Screwdriver.cd, a new streamlined build system designed to enable Continuous Delivery to production at scale for dynamic infrastructure.
Some of the key design features of Screwdriver have helped Yahoo achieve Continuous Delivery at scale. At a high level these are:
Making deployment pipelines easy
Optimizing for trunk development
Making rolling back easy
Easy deployment pipelines: Deployment pipelines that continuously test, integrate, and deploy code to production greatly reduce the risk of errors and reduce the time to get feedback to developers. The challenge for many groups had been that pipelines were cumbersome to setup and maintain. We designed a solution that made pipelines easy to configure and completely self-service for any developer. By managing the pipeline configuration in the code repository Screwdriver allows developers to configure pipelines in a manner familiar to them, and as a bonus, to easily code review pipeline changes too.
Trunk development: Internally, we encourage workflows where the trunk is always shippable. Our teams use a modified GitHub flow for their workflows. Pull Requests (PRs) are the entry point for running tests and ensuring code that entered the repository has been sufficiently tested. Insisting on formal PRs also improves the quality of our code reviews.
To ensure trunks are shippable, we enable functional testing of code in the PRs. Internally, this is a configuration baked into pipelines that dynamically allocates compute resources, deploys the code, and runs tests. These tests include web testing using tools like Selenium. These dynamically-allocated resources are also available for a period after the PR build, allowing engineers to interact with the system and review visual aspects of their changes.
Easy rollbacks: To allow for easy code rollbacks, we allow phases of the pipeline to be re-run at a previously-saved state. We leverage features in our PaaS to handle the deployment, but we store and pass metadata to enable us to re-run from a specific git SHA with the same deployment data. This allows us to roll back to a previous state in production. This design makes rolling back as easy as selecting a version from a dropdown menu and clicking “deploy.” Anyone with write access to the project can make this change. This helped us move teams to a DevOps model where developers were responsible for the production state.
The successful growth of Screwdriver over the past 5 years at Yahoo has today led to Screwdriver being synonymous with Continuous Delivery within the company. Screwdriver handles over 25,000+ builds per day and 12,000+ daily git commits as a single shared entrypoint for Yahoo. It supports multiple languages and handles both virtual machine and container-based builds and deployment.
Screwdriver.cd’s architecture is comprised of four main components: a frontend for serving content to the user, a stateless API that orchestrates between user interactions and build operations, the execution engines (Docker Swarm, Kubernetes, etc.) that checkout source code and execute in containers, and the launcher that executes and monitors commands inside the container.
The diagram below shows this architecture overlaid with a typical developer flow.
To give some context around our execution engines, internal Screwdriver started as an abstraction layer on top of Jenkins and used Docker to provide isolation, common build containers, etc. We used features provided by Jenkins plugins to leverage existing work around coverage and test reports. However, as Screwdriver usage continued to climb, it outgrew a single Jenkins cluster. So in order to grow to our needs, we added capabilities in Screwdriver that allowed us to scale horizontally while also adding capabilities to schedule pipelines across a number of Jenkins clusters. As we scaled Screwdriver, we used less from Jenkins and built more supporting services utilizing our cloud infrastructure. The open-source version is focused on Kubernetes and Docker Swarm as our primary supported execution engines.
In the coming months we will expand our offering to match many of the features we have internally, including:
Mechanism to store structured build data for later use (last deployed version, test coverage, etc.)
Built-in metric collecting
System-wide templates to enable getting started quickly
Log analysis to provide insights to developers
Please join us on the path to making Continuous Delivery easy. Visit http://screwdriver.cd to get started.

State Farm® Teams Up with Yahoo Sports to Engage Basketball Fans with New Campaign

By Lisa Utzschneider, Chief Revenue Officer

We’re excited to have State Farm® kicking off a new campaign on Yahoo Sports to connect with basketball fans throughout the 2016-2017 season. As part of these efforts, State Farm will engage fans through custom integrations across Yahoo Sports, with a special focus on The Vertical with Woj, as well as extensive video, native and display advertising.

State Farm, which has been a sponsor of the NBA since 2010, is collaborating with Yahoo to extend its digital advertising efforts this year and find unique ways to reach basketball fans across screens. As part of State Farm’s new digital campaign, the brand will sponsor some of Yahoo Sports’ top NBA content including The Vertical with Woj, a hub for NBA news, information and storytelling on Yahoo Sports run by NBA insider, Adrian Wojnarowski. When The Vertical launched in January 2016, State Farm was a premier sponsor. Following this success and The Vertical’s continued growth, State Farm is back as a sponsor this season. With high-impact display and video ads, as well as branded integrations within top video series, State Farm will connect with sports fans on The Vertical. In particular, the brand will feature its Right Combination Play content as part of a new custom branded integration within “The Woj Report”, a popular video series in which Adrian Wojnarowski offers his unique insider perspective and analyzes the NBA’s biggest storylines on The Vertical.

Yahoo Sports is a top destination for millions of sports fans during the NBA basketball season and this is part of State Farm’s Right Combination campaign, featuring NBA athletes such as Chris Paul. State Farm will also sponsor popular editorial coverage including the Front Office Insider column from Bobby Marks. In 2017, the State Farm campaign will also capitalize on special events on Yahoo Sports such as the NBA Live Draft.

Connect With Leading Voices – The Yahoo App Spotlights Top Contributors

By Asad Sheth, Product Manager, Yahoo App

Since updating the Yahoo app with the launch of Newsroom, we’ve watched our community come together and engage in passionate discussions around the topics that matter the most to them. Our global community has joined hundreds of news topics, or Vibes, to share reactions and discuss the latest happenings around the world.

With today’s update, we’ve created a program to highlight top contributors so it’s easy to see the most interesting conversations happening in the app. These top contributors, acknowledged with a lightning bolt, are users who have contributed content that has sparked reactions from the community on the topics they are passionate about. Click on their profile to see what stories they are posting and join the conversation by adding your comments and reactions.

To become a top contributor, keep using the app, post articles in Vibes and continue to engage with the community. Download the Yahoo app from the App Store and Google Play Store today. These updates are live now on iOS and will be rolling out on Android soon.

Important Security Information for Yahoo Users

By Bob Lord, CISO

Following a recent investigation, we’ve identified data security issues concerning certain Yahoo user accounts. We’ve taken steps to secure those user accounts and we’re working closely with law enforcement.

What happened?

As we previously disclosed in November, law enforcement provided us with data files that a third party claimed was Yahoo user data. We analyzed this data with the assistance of outside forensic experts and found that it appears to be Yahoo user data. Based on further analysis of this data by the forensic experts, we believe an unauthorized third party, in August 2013, stole data associated with more than one billion user accounts. We have not been able to identify the intrusion associated with this theft. We believe this incident is likely distinct from the incident we disclosed on September 22, 2016.

For potentially affected accounts, the stolen user account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (using MD5) and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers. The investigation indicates that the stolen information did not include passwords in clear text, payment card data, or bank account information. Payment card data and bank account information are not stored in the system the company believes was affected.

Separately, we previously disclosed that our outside forensic experts were investigating the creation of forged cookies that could allow an intruder to access users’ accounts without a password. Based on the ongoing investigation, we believe an unauthorized third party accessed our proprietary code to learn how to forge cookies. The outside forensic experts have identified user accounts for which they believe forged cookies were taken or used. We are notifying the affected account holders, and have invalidated the forged cookies. We have connected some of this activity to the same state-sponsored actor believed to be responsible for the data theft the company disclosed on September 22, 2016.

What are we doing to protect our users?

We are notifying potentially affected users and have taken steps to secure their accounts, including requiring users to change their passwords. We have also invalidated unencrypted security questions and answers so that they cannot be used to access an account. With respect to the cookie forging activity, we invalidated the forged cookies and hardened our systems to secure them against similar attacks. We continuously enhance our safeguards and systems that detect and prevent unauthorized access to user accounts.

What can users do to protect their account?

We encourage our users to visit our Safety Center page for recommendations on how to stay secure online. Some important recommendations we’re re-emphasizing today include the following:

Change your passwords and security questions and answers for any other accounts on which you used the same or similar information used for your Yahoo account;
Review all of your accounts for suspicious activity;
Be cautious of any unsolicited communications that ask for your personal information or refer you to a web page asking for personal information;
Avoid clicking on links or downloading attachments from suspicious emails; and
Consider using Yahoo Account Key, a simple authentication tool that eliminates the need to use a password on Yahoo altogether.

For more information about these security matters and our security resources, please visit the Yahoo Security Issue FAQs page, https://yahoo.com/security-update.

Statements in this press release regarding the findings of Yahoo’s ongoing investigations involve potential risks and uncertainties. The final conclusions of the investigations may differ from the findings to date due to various factors including, but not limited to, the discovery of new or additional information and other developments that may arise during the course of the investigation. More information about potential risks and uncertainties of security breaches that could affect the Company’s business and financial results is included under the caption “Risk Factors” in the Company’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2016, which is on file with the SEC and available on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.

Introducing Yahoo Answers Now – A New App for the Q&A Community

By Tim Su, Director, Engineering

Many questions, such as “what should I get my 50-year-old mother for the holidays?” or “what should photography hobbyists do when visiting Miami this weekend?” require human experience and insight to answer fully. Yahoo Answers was an early entry point for users to ask their community for insight and 300 million people sign on monthly to ask others for guidance.

Today, we’re excited to announce Yahoo Answers Now, which re-imagines the Q&A experience for mobile users. Available on iOS and Android phones in the U.S., the app helps users pose questions and receive quality answers quickly from members who have relevant experiences and expertise.

Key features include:

Matching: When you ask a question, we route it to qualified responders who have the experiences and expertise to provide a high quality answer.
Following: Gone are the days of having to manually remember user profiles. Follow users you respect to easily stay connected.
Give thanks: Use the “thank you” and emoji buttons to express appreciation.
Rich media: Craft awesome answers with a wider assortment of media, including images and links.
Blazing fast: Get notified immediately when someone answers your question or thanks you for a great answer.

Download Yahoo Answers Now from the App Store or Play Store today to give these features a whirl and tap into the insight of our community!

Big thanks to our early users for the great feedback. We’re always interested in additional feedback, so please keep sharing (select the “Send Feedback” option in the app)!

The Best of Polyvore: 2016

By Amy Wicks, Yahoo Trends Editor

Drake and RiRi’s on-again, off-again relationship, 1D’s breakup, athleisure or nude lips – what were this year’s top trends in pop culture, entertainment, fashion and beauty? We dove deep to reveal our community’s top searches in our third-annual “Best of Polyvore” report.

From America to Australia, we uncovered the buzziest celebrities, hottest fashion trends, splurge-worthy designer duds and best beauty finds of 2016.

Keeping Up With…Kylie

While the Balmain-clad Kardashian klan is hot, the one to keep up with this year is Kylie Jenner, Polyvore’s Top Female Fashion Icon of 2016. On social media, Kylie gives her fans an inside peek into the life of the world’s most glamorous teen. Her Lip Kits, Kyliner and nail polish collections constantly sell out within minutes. Plus, Kylie garnered 34% more interest this year than everyone’s favorite bad girl, Rihanna, who ranks #2 on our list.

Not to be outdone by the youngest Kardashian/Jenner sister, supermodel BFFs Kendall Jenner (3) and Gigi Hadid (4) give Kylie a run for her money. The always cool Selena Gomez (5) rounds out our top five. Honorable mentions go to Ariana Grande, Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham, and style chameleon Olivia Palermo.

Drake Worked for Your Searches (Work, Work, Work, Work, Work)

Disappointing “Beliebers” worldwide, Harry Styles tops Polyvore’s Top Male Fashion Icons list for the second year, beating out Justin Bieber (2) by 56%! Drake ranked third, thanks to his on-again, off-again bae, RiRi (#2 on our Top Female Fashion Icons list) – searches for him increased 31%! The year’s most surprising addition is the late David Bowie (4). Rounding out our Top Male Fashion Icons list is fellow 1D-er Niall Horan (5).

The Boy Band Game is still strong this year, as honorable mentions go to 5SOS star Michael Clifford, ex-1D bandmate Zayn Malik and Twenty One Pilots drummer Josh Dun.

Dressing Down Is What’s Up

Step aside, stilettos! The Polyvore community went wild for athleisure for the second consecutive year – sneakers never looked so hot! Adidas Superstar is Polyvore’s hottest fashion must-have in 2016. Searches for footwear faves like Nike Air Max Thea spiked 71% and slip-on sneakers spiked 85% this year. Being comfortable is key, witness the fact that bomber jackets and mesh leggings are trending worldwide. Retro styles are also having a moment, as searches for throwback favorites like Adidas Superstar (+286%), Choker Necklaces (+150%) and Mini Backpacks (+68%) saw major spikes when compared to 2015.

Calling All Bag Ladies: Lux Is In!

Affordable fashion came out on top in 2014, but Polyvore’s Most Popular Designers are riding high-end this year. Luxury designers like Gucci (1), Chanel (2), Valentino (3), Fendi (4) and Givenchy (5) came out on top in 2016. First-ranked Gucci garnered 33% more searches than second-ranked Chanel. But what items topped the list? Handbags were the top-searched item for each designer save for Valentino and his swanky Rockstud sneakers.

Red Lips Are Out

On the beauty front, the Polyvore community paid homage to Top Female Fashion Icon, Kylie Jenner, and went wild for nude lipstick. Searches for the shade increased 553% and matte lipstick increased 267%, which further proves King Kylie’s massive influence.

Our Most Popular Beauty Brands list was a mixed makeup bag, with luxe lines like MAC (1), NARS (2) and Urban Decay (3) topping accessible brands like Bath & Body Works (4) and Clinique (5). Polyvore beauty gurus hoarded O.G. products this year, as searches for cult favorite products like Nars’ Orgasm Blush and Urban Decay’s Naked Palette had an edge over new launches.

Style Spotter - Who’s Shopping for What, Where?

One of the best parts about Polyvore’s fashion community is its ability to capture and embrace global trends, right in their backyards. On the homefront, high-neck swimwear was America’s top fashion trend, with 18 states slotting it as the most popular item. Local Polyvore searches by city put a spotlight on kicks. In fact, 14 major cities showed sneakers as the most popular fashion trend.

2016 proved that our community dared to go bare. Nude lipstick is having a major moment, with 28 U.S. states and 12 countries sporting the pale hue – further proof that Kylie Jenner’s best-selling Lip Kits are taking the world by storm.

When it comes to pop culture, fashion and beauty styles, Polyvore’s global community has a finger on the pulse of all that’s influential. What did you think of our “Best of Polyvore” report? Are you wondering where your favorite A-listers, fashion finds or beauty buys rank on our list? Share your thoughts by reaching out to @Polyvore on Twitter and using the hashtag #PolyData.

Yahoo Signs The White House Equal Pay Pledge

By Margenett Moore-Roberts, Global Head of Inclusive Diversity

Pay equity is a critical and inextricable component of Yahoo’s mission to build an inclusive and diverse workplace. I am incredibly proud that we have joined more than 100 other companies in signing The White House Equal Pay Pledge.

Learn more about the pledge here.

Yahoo Reveals 2016 Year in Review: Top News Stories, Pop Culture, Sports Moments, Fashion Trends, and More

By Amy Wicks, Yahoo Trends Editor

It’s no secret that 2016 has been one for the books; we saw the most contentious presidential election in American history, the loss of some of our most widely celebrated pop culture icons, and innovations in technology that changed the way we shop, eat, interact, travel and go about everyday life.

Today, we unveiled our 2016 Year in Review, a detailed look at what captured the hearts and minds of our users across the globe this year, drawing from billions of searches on Yahoo, Polyvore, Tumblr and Flickr. We’ve been doing Year in Review for 15 years, and each report gives us an incredibly introspective look at what people, issues and trends were top of mind for the one billion and counting visitors across the Yahoo platforms.

Top Searches and News Stories

On Yahoo, the 2016 Election and President-elect Donald Trump received the most searches throughout the year. What you may find more surprising is that Hillary Clinton was number 10 on the list, landing below “Full House” – or more presently, “Fuller House” – star Jodie Sweetin. How rude! FOX News anchor Megyn Kelly, who has been turning heads for her no-holds-barred interview style, came in at number seven this year.

Stories about Election Day and the death of Prince were the most popular on Yahoo News. Continuing with the election trend, Trump protests were the number eight most-read news articles, followed by Clinton emails and the presidential debates.

Top Lifestyle Searches

Millions of style-savvy shoppers flocked to Polyvore for all-things fashion-related, revealing athleisure as the reigning style trend. adidas Superstars, bomber jackets and faux fur coats were amongst the top 10 fashion must-haves. If you’re interested in styling these must-haves or want to learn about the most popular fashion and beauty moments in 2016, visit blog.polyvore.com. “The Voice” judge and former No Doubt frontwoman Gwen Stefani topped the list of the most searched celebrities on Yahoo, with Khloe Kardashian beating out sister Kim as the most popular Kardashian on Yahoo, as the number two top searched A-lister. Celeb feuds generated buzz this year as well – searches for Taylor Swift and Katy Perry were popular, as were exes Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez. On Yahoo Music, the passing of David Bowie made him the top music artist, followed by Taylor Swift at number two. Pop staples Lady Gaga and Britney Spears released their first albums in three years, earning them the sixth and seventh spots on the list. “Queen Bey” Beyonce rounded out the list at number 10, thanks to a hugely successful “Lemonade” album drop and Formation World Tour.

On the big screen , it seems superheroes helped our users get through 2016, with “X-Men: Apocalypse”, and “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”, taking the number one and two spots on the list of top movies. “Suicide Squad”, and “Ghostbusters”, also made this year’s list, thanks to large marketing campaigns and star-studded casts.

Top Sports Stories

News coverage from Yahoo Sports vertical continued to draw millions of engaged readers this year. The Olympics made up a significant portion of the top searches, including the misinterpreted photo of gymnast Shawn Johnson and the attack of Judo medalist Dirk Van Tichelt while he celebrated his win. The tragic losses of boxing legend Muhammad Ali and the MLB’s Jose Fernandez also made the list of most-read articles, as did Kevin Durant’s widely criticized move to the Golden State Warriors – the ninth most-read story.

Top Companies

Amongst the top-read stories on Yahoo Finance, the unveiling of the highly anticipated iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus put Apple on the map as the top company, though the world’s most notable companies were not without their shakeups. Twitter was under fire for it’s controversial decision to close Vine, and Tesla shared scrutiny for its role in a fatal accident involving its self-driving car, “Autopilot”.

Top Photos on Flickr

On Flickr, we carefully selected the top 25 photos based on a number of engagement and community factors, from billions of uploads by photographers around the world with a penchant for capturing beauty in all its forms. The top photos this year span everything from animals in their habitats to nature scenes to dense urban centers. The number one photo, “Cuando amanece la pasión”, captures dawn at the Aveiro Lagoon in Portugal. The number seven shot, “Tropic Thunder II” – showing tentacle-like lightning reaching down from the clouds – was also the first time the photographer had ever photographed lightning.

Latest News