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from MediaFile:
The future of search only cost $30 million
On the surface, Nick D’Aloisio’s story is the kind tech lives for, and sometimes regrets. It’s the tale of a kid selling an obscure startup for an inflated price, and then it becomes as irrelevant as Netscape, and its buyer’s remorse is part of the company's enduring legacy.
But the story of Summly, a startup whose app appeared in the Apple Store only five months ago and was purchased on Monday by Yahoo for a reported $30 million, isn't part of this trite arc.
This isn't a boilerplate tale about a youngster hitting the jackpot, a former Internet giant trying to buy a relevance makeover, or even about an intriguing programmatic way to summarize news. It is about the future of search.
D’Aloisio’s youth – he’s 17 - and windfall are interesting data points, even if all the work behind the magic algorithm isn't the sole product of this high schooler's brain. Like all really good ideas, Summly's is simple: Anything can be summarized, but by having a computer do it, the number of things you can summarize — and the speed with which it can be done — are massively increased. As an app, it filtered news stories and — Presto Chango! — spit out the CliffsNotes version, optimized for a smartphone's tiny screen (and our infinitesimal attention span).
from Unstructured Finance:
Daniel Loeb surfing to the top of the hedge fund charts again
Something must be in the water over at 399 Park Avenue, where Daniel Loeb’s hedge fund Third Point is headquartered. His Third Point Ultra fund has already gained 12.42 percent this year through the 13th of March, according to data from HSBC’s Private Bank.
The portfolio added 3.3 percent alone between March 1 and March 13. By comparison, hedge funds have returned about 4 percent year-to-date, according to HSBC.
from Jack Shafer:
Is this story less than the Summly of its parts?
Like children at bedtime, news consumers love nothing more than to be told the same story again and again. Oh sure, they need the names of the principals to change, the location to vary, and the supporting cast of characters to shift. But the closer the popular press can come to retelling a vital and engaging Ur-tale as opposed to building a new one from scratch, the happier readers tend to be.
If today's coverage of Yahoo's $30 million acquisition of Summly — maker of a news-condensing app developed by London schoolboy Nick D’Aloisio — fit the tech-acquisition news template any more snuggly, it would be the first layer of news epidermis. The company's founder is all of 17 years old, a fact that earns prominent mention in the opening sentences of the accounts in the New York Times (Page One), the Washington Post, Bloomberg News, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, and practically everywhere else.
from MediaFile:
Have AOL and Yahoo picked up the pieces?
"There are no second acts in American lives." — F. Scott Fitzgerald
Good thing Fitzgerald didn’t live long enough to tell that to AOL and Yahoo, which are confounding wet blankets with sparks of renewed life and relevance. The bit of renaissance for these Internet pioneers comes when Google and Apple are in a bit of a rut and Facebook seems to have found its bottom. (The one constant: Groupon and Zynga are still floundering.)
None of these things are related, of course. There is no astrology of technology, aligning the stars in such a way as to favor some and deny others. Tech success isn't a zero-sum game, especially when valuations aren’t everything. Just look at Apple's rise and fall and rebirth.
from Jack Shafer:
Why the Yahoos at Yahoo were wrong to fire David Chalian
If you're a journalist and you've ever said anything "inappropriate," as David Chalian got caught doing yesterday -- and you know you have -- please step forward to be fired now.
Chalian, the Washington bureau chief for Yahoo News, ridiculed Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann, during a Monday webcast from the Republican National Convention. It's not uncommon for bureau chiefs, beat reporters or copy editors to verbally eviscerate politicians, corporate leaders, slumping sluggers or any other notable not in the room at the time, but they usually have the good sense to first check to see if a microphone is on. Chalian did not.
from Breakingviews:
Yahoo investors counting on Mayer burning cash
By Robert Cyran
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
This looks like a case of lost in translation for Yahoo. The internet group led by Marissa Mayer says it may use much of the bounty from selling its stake in Alibaba, the Chinese web conglomerate, for acquisitions, rather than returning it to shareholders in the form a special dividend or buyback. As crummy as that sounds, it is already baked into Yahoo’s value. Investors seem resigned to Mayer wasting a chunk of their cash.
Yahoo obviously did not hire Mayer to wind down the troubled company. The former Google hotshot is ambitious. And the $70 million pay package the company granted her must be predicated on bigger things than acting as a caretaker or liquidator. Yet investors seemed startled that Mayer now may hang on to the $4.2 billion or so Yahoo will reap after taxes from the sale of half of its stake in Alibaba. Yahoo’s shares fell almost 6 percent.
from Breakingviews:
Yahoo pays up for dream of CEO stardust
By Robert Cyran
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.Yahoo is paying up for the dream of a chief executive sprinkling stardust. After churning through several CEOs in quick succession, it’s easy to see why Google hotshot Marissa Mayer snagged a $70 million pay deal from the fading internet search firm. But as J.C. Penney with its ex-Apple boss shows, there are no quick fixes.
The motivations of Mayer and Yahoo are easy enough to discern. Mayer was the 20th employee at Google, in charge of several of its most important businesses, and a natural candidate for chief executive. But that path was blocked by co-founder Larry Page. Now she will have the chance to be a CEO and to make her mark at the fourth biggest site on the Internet. At 37, Mayer is also young enough - and Yahoo sufficiently troubled - that if she fails to reinvigorate the company she will surely get more chances.
from MediaFile:
Mayer can’t save Yahoo – because Yahoo can’t be saved
Yahoo eats CEOs. The perennially ailing company lures talented managers into the corner suite of its Silicon Valley headquarters, then it sucks their good reputations out of their veins and casts them aside. They inevitably pass through the revolving door an empty shell of their former selves.
Terry Semel, Jerry Yang, Carol Bartz, Scott Thompson. All took the CEO helm with visions of invigorating Yahoo into an Internet leader for the 21st century. Most became mired in Yahoo's stubbornly byzantine culture. And all probably collected their severance checks wishing to themselves they'd never heard of the company with its stupid hillbilly name and its superfluous punctuation mark.*
from Breakingviews:
Yahoo tackles existential problem with engineering
By Rob Cox
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
Yahoo is tackling an existential problem not with a philosopher king, but an engineer. The internet grab bag has hired Marissa Mayer, one of the few females to rise up through Silicon Valley’s geek hierarchy, to be its next chief executive. She’s certainly qualified - and no doubt itching - to become CEO of something. But Yahoo’s manifold problems won’t so easily be solved by rewriting computer code.
from Breakingviews:
Long-awaited Yahoo deal heaps pressure on Alibaba
By Wei Gu
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.
Alibaba has finally reached a truce with Yahoo. The Chinese e-commerce giant is offering at least $7 billion to buy back its own shares from the U.S. internet group, recapturing half the stake Yahoo acquired in 2005 for $1 billion. The timing is good, since Facebook’s IPO has left cashed-up investors who could help finance the deal. But a successful outcome will heap pressure on Alibaba.
