A string of Yahoo sales, engineering and product executives took the stage on Wednesday in the company's first full-day briefing with analysts since May 2006, all with a mantra that came down from on high: "Today is the beginning of a journey back to respect," said CEO Carol Bartz.

With page views increasing, Carl Icahn having drawn in his horns, and the company extending a deadline for finalizing a search agreement with Microsoft, the time was right for a love-in.

Finance Chief Tim Morse said Yahoo expects to achieve operating margins between 15 percent and 20 percent by 2012. After the third quarter's "pathetic" 6 percent, shareholders would certainly consider that a more respectful performance.

Another way to show their respect would have been to give specific details on the engineering involved in the promised prestige. Executives said Yahoo would achieve the new margin targets by accelerating its revenue in the next few years, but demurred from providing a specific revenue growth target.

The company said it would invest in editorial staff to produce more original features, and tweak its online products to keep users on the site longer and boost advertising revenue.

Hiring more staff and investing in ad search wizardry will certainly add to costs, so the need for a little more Internet alchemy could require a leap of faith to engineer the recovery in esteem Yahoo hopes to achieve.

Three years is a long time to go without having an analyst day, and it seems Yahoo decided to make up for lost time with a marathon seven-plus-hour briefing to Wall Street’s number-crunchers on Wednesday.

Perhaps having gotten a little rusty from non-practice, Yahoo dispensed with some of the customs of the analyst day ritual. Members of the press were barred from the event, and forced to watch the proceedings over a Webcast, with all the attendant technical difficulties and indignities.

Yahoo’s plug for analysts was simple enough: Yahoo got boring and slow-footed over the years, but the company still commands a massive online audience that’s extremely valuable to advertisers.

But the company’s delivery of the message did not always follow the standard analyst day script.

Specific financial targets were few and far between (Yahoo’s promise of 15 percent to 20 percent operating margins by 2012 was the meatiest nugget).

And one slide, during a presentation on advertising yield-optimization, seemed more suited to a blackboard at MIT than a briefing with financial analysts.

Questions?

Twitter love was in full bloom at the Web 2.0 conference on Wednesday, with Microsoft and Google each announcing deals to partner with the microblogging service.

But marring the Twitter hoopla were no-shows from two of the event’s highest-profile speakers.

A day after Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz skipped the company’s quarterly earnings conference call (because she had “come down with something” as CFO Tim Morse explained), Bartz skipped the Web 2.0 conference, where she was scheduled to kick off Wednesday’s events with a 30-minute talk.

Web 2.0 organizer John Battelle told the crowd Bartz had come down with “a very, very, very bad flu.”

Before the day was through, Battelle delivered news of another absentee.

New York Times Chairman Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., slated to be part of a panel on the future of journalism in the online age, was also hit by the flu, Battelle said moments before the panel began. Fortunately, Martin Nisenholtz, the New York Times head of digital operations, was there to stand in as Sulzberger’s second.

With one more day to go, attendees at the event are hoping no one else gets afflicted.

Hack days are de rigueur among Web companies — a standard way to foster innovation and to burnish a company’s street cred among techies. So videos of Yahoo’s recent hack day in Taiwan that surfaced on the Internet should have been good PR.

The problem: The coders at the Yahoo event appeared less interested in creating the next killer app than in enjoying the lap dances being generously doled out by the scantily-clad dancers in attendance.

Yahoo apologized for the event in a blog post Monday evening, calling the incident “regrettable” and promising that it would not happen again.

“Our hack events are designed to give developers an opportunity to learn about our APIs and technologies. As many folks have rightly pointed out, the “Hack Girls” aspect of our Taiwan Hack Day is not reflective of that spirit or purpose,” wrote Chris Yeh, head of Yahoo Developer Network in the post.

A Yahoo spokeswoman emailed a statement that repeated some of the comments on the blog apology and said that Yahoo would implement controls to eliminate inappropriate elements at future Hack Day and Yahoo sponsored events.

Some blogs noted that the presence of go-go dancers is actually quite commonplace in Taiwan.

But the online fury was already in motion, with many posters lambasting the Internet company for promoting such a practice in an industry still struggling to diversify its ranks with more women.

And Boomtown’s Kara Swisher noted that Yahoo’s recent event was not the first of its kind, with links to videos (since rendered inaccessible to the public) that appeared to show similar gyrating dancers at an event in Taiwan last year.

The blow-up comes as Yahoo is due to report third-quarter earnings after Tuesday’s market close. Wall Street isn’t expecting much - Yahoo’s revenue is expected to decline - but the company is probably more than happy for the world to re-focus its attention on its financial performance.

In politics, bashing the so-called “coastal elitists” is a time-honored tradition.

Now the ritual has spread to the Internet business.

In a briefing with reporters on Tuesday, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz lambasted the company’s critics, whom she suggested are out of touch with most of America.

“When you get out of New York City and Silicon Valley everybody loves Yahoo,” said Bartz, citing the positive feedback she gets from regular folks on her many travels (she cited interactions with ebullient passport control officials and people in her former home state of Wisconsin).

“Jesus, I just want to transplant all you guys out of this cynicism you’re in,” she told the members of the press gathered at the briefing. “If you don’t like us, just leave us alone. We’ll just deal with our users,” Bartz continued, noting that discussing the subject had gotten her “pissed off.”

Yahoo watchers have become accustomed to Bartz’ penchant for salty language, but Tuesday’s populist rant seems to fit into another interesting theme, first noticed by Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan who recently pointed out certain similarities between Bartz and a well-known former governor of Alaska.

Of course, Bartz, who described herself as a tough “old broad,” is not swearing off New York-types entirely - the briefing took place in Manhattan to kick-off a new $100 million marketing campaign.

Perhaps the only thing missing now is a role in Yahoo’s adverts for up-and-coming people’s pitchman Joe the Plumber.

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz was right by the Reuters office this morning, ringing the morning bell at Nasdaq on 43rd Street and Broadway, so I ran down to catch a glimpse and lob a few questions at her. With all the buzz about Yahoo’s new marketing campaign, which is set to be unveiled tomorrow, I asked Bartz if she was excited.

“Excited? I’m so excited about it, I could do a Yahoo yodel,” she said. But then, she didn’t oblige. Bartz did say New Yorkers will see splashy Yahoo signs and other gimmicks over the next few days. But it’s not just New York.

The campaign, which the New York Times says is backed by a $100 million budget, will be launched all over the world, Bartz said. We’ll have more on Tuesday, when Yahoo executives tell reporters what they are up to. Until then, here’s a sneak peak courtesy of The Wall Street Journal, which says the campaign tagline is “It’s You!”.

And here is a (admittedly not very good) picture of Bartz posing for the cameras outside the Nasdaq building, taken from my BlackBerry:

-- Eric Auchard is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own --

The fate of Yahoo Inc has become intertwined in the public's imagination with the success or failure of its dealings with Microsoft Corp in recent years.

That's despite the fact that as much as 70 percent of the value investors put on Yahoo's depressed shares are tied up in its international assets or cash holdings -- factors that have nothing to do with Microsoft.

Yahoo's operations trade for just $5 to $6 per share out of its current $15 share price, once you exclude its Asian investments and the value of its cash. Its hidden assets in Japan and Chinese affiliates -- Yahoo Japan Corp and China's Alibaba Group -- alone are worth around $6 to $7 per share.

The trouble is that Yahoo needs to find a way to cash out of its increasingly rocky relationship with Alibaba Group, in which it holds a 39 percent stake after it pulled back from operating its own business in China in 2005.

Yahoo's best chance here may come next year if Alibaba succeeds with a second IPO of its Taobao.com consumer ecommerce site, building on the success of the 2007 IPO of Alibaba.com, now valued at more than US$13 billion on the Hong Kong exchange.

Truth be told, Yahoo's huge success in building the biggest U.S. Internet media destination never translated very well overseas, despite the early foray into Asia that left it with lucrative assets in Japan and China. These passive investments came to substitute for a global operating strategy.

But that's changing now, as Yahoo once again has begun investing in international operations it can fully control.

In its latest such push, Yahoo said on Tuesday that it would buy Maktoob.com, the largest Internet media site for the Arab world, with an estimated 16.5 million users. Terms were not disclosed.

Yahoo's international stronghold is Asia, where it had 172 million unique users in the month of June, according to industry estimates. It is the top player in Japan through its stake in Softbank-controlled Yahoo Japan, and is dominant in Taiwan and Hong Kong as well.

In India, Yahoo has the most visited home page and is the most popular provider of e-mail, instant messaging and online news to consumers. In a country mad on the sport, Yahoo operates the most popular site for cricket fans. Yahoo had 23 million unique monthly users in India in June, according to market researcher comScore.

But Yahoo stock gets little to no stock market credit for these international operations. Converting market share into meaningful financial results will take years. First, Yahoo must develop its patchwork of leading properties in places like the Philippines and Vietnam and Latin America into a global franchise. And it's hard to see how Yahoo can regain lost ground in Europe's more developed Internet markets.

Until now, the trap for Yahoo has been that much of its international value remains latent, locked up in investments in Japan and China rather than in operating businesses it controls. That is changing, slowly.

This leaves Yahoo at the mercy of an eventual rebound in U.S. advertising markets. For the foreseeable future, any significant rebound in Yahoo's share price depends on conjecture over the still unknown potential of getting into bed with Microsoft.

-- At the time of publication Eric Auchard did not own any direct investments in securities mentioned in this article, with the exception of a token Yahoo share. He may be an owner indirectly as an investor in a fund. --

Get ready for the smack talk as Yahoo is launching a fantasy football competition among 11 U.S. mayors.

Former NBA star Kevin Johnson, who is now mayor of Sacramento, is among the competitors in the head-to-head league. The mayors will compete weekly based on the statistics of National Football League players they draft. Other mayors involved are from Buffalo, New York; Green Bay, Wisconsin; Kansas City, Missouri; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Oakland and San Francisco, California; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Orlando, Florida; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Tampa, Florida.

Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett, a lifetime Green Bay Packers fan, is already putting on his game face: "Winning is the only thing."

In fantasy sports, fans, including the mayors, select real athletes for make-believe teams and compete based on statistics compiled in the real games. Fantasy sports of all kinds are played by millions of Americans, generating about $1 billion in annual revenue.

Cornett said he will be very involved with his team, but has tapped his 30-year-old son to act as his team's general manager. His only rule? No Minnesota Vikings.

The Yahoo fantasy football season kicks off Sept. 10, but no date has been set yet for the mayors' live draft.

The winner of the mayoral league will earn $15,000 for the local nonprofit sports program of his or her choice, while fans, starting Aug. 13, can earn their city another $15,000 donation by voting for their city. The mayoral league can be followed online.

The winning city will be announced on Sept. 11, while the winner of the mayoral league will be crowned on Jan. 11.

No word on whether the mayors will be making the draft picks themselves or delegating roster moves to a subordinate.

(Reuters photo)

It takes a deft touch to vanish a boatload of cash, but Yahoo seems to have done it.

Disappointed investors voted with their feet initially when the Microsoft-Yahoo deal, announced in the early hours of Wednesday, came with reams of detail on search, revenue-sharing, technology and advertising tie-ups — but no anticipated upfront payment, which some had put at around $1 billion. Yahoo prompty lost about a 10th of its market value.

“This agreement comes with boatloads of value for Yahoo, our users, and the industry, and I believe it establishes the foundation for a new era of Internet innovation and development,” Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz said in a press statement released jointly with Microsoft on Wednesday.

Back in May, Bartz said her company would be open to any deal with “boatloads of money” and the right technology. Microsoft is indeed cash-rich, but the market might be wondering why shareholders won’t immediately see much from its coffers.

Asked what had happened to the boatloads of money on a conference call for investors and media, Bartz appeared to go on the defensive.

“What was really important to Yahoo is that we had a deal that flowed successfully through our P&L. Having a big cash payment upfront doesn’t really help us from an operating standpoint,” Bartz responded, before launching into an explanation of traffic acquisition costs, expense lines and investing in the business.

“So listen, it’s easier to talk about boatloads of cash and value because you guys understand that. But as far as we’re concerned the boatload of cash is us preserving our revenue line.”

Few in the media business know dealmaking better than Barry Diller.

So it comes as little surprise that the head of IAC/Interactive was asked about both the Microsoft-Yahoo deal and the AOL separation during an earnings conference call today. He sounded upbeat on both situations.

Here are some excepts:

Microsoft-Yahoo:

One significant thing that happened is we’re not going have to talk about whether or not it’s going to happen anymore [Ed -Amen to that!]. Look, Microsoft will be able to report a greater share in terms of search and get — at least in some minds of the talkers — into being up there in competing terms with Google. And Yahoo doesn’t have to spend anymore money on search. As far as being able to execute, that is very complicated.

For us, I think that the significance is we want, need, must have at least two competitive forces, big competitive forces… I want to have two players out there wanting to get our incremental business, which is, of course, of real value to the companies.

So, I think it’s good for all parties.

AOL:

On AOL, I have a lot of confidence in Tim Armstrong. I think he’s coming there as a great whoosh of energy and real change, I think, for the first time, in my god, in I don’t know how long.

I have high expectations for what he’s going to be able to do.

As far as strategies with the spinoff company or the company’s configurations in the future, we’re talking with them about ideas about commercial relationships and both in the local area and search area. We’ll see what happens.

There is no possibility of really speculating beyond the fact that it’s obvious there are interesting relationships between what AOL does and what aspects of IAC does.

We’ll have to wait and see.

Perhaps the next time we hear from Diller, he’ll be talking about his own deal, maybe how he’s used the near $2 billion in cash he still has on IAC’s balance sheet.

(Photo: Reuters)