Yahoo!, a premier digital media company, announced that
it will be looking for a permanent CEO to take the company to new horizons.

Timothy Morse is the interim chief executive
officer after the Yahoo! replaced Carol Bartz.

Yahoo! needs a Steve Jobs of Apple to guide the company
to the next level. Carol is said to be an effective manager, but didn’t have
the vision needed to lead Yahoo!.

Yahoo! is yet to become a significant competitor to
Google in terms of revenues and its market positioning.

Carol’s presence at Yahoo’s did not take the share price
to new level. Yahoo! share price was $11.59 the day before her appointment.
When the markets closed on September 6 in the US, the stock was worth $12.74.
That is an increase of less than 10 per cent, with most of that value being
derived from the skyrocketing value of its China assets.

Yahoo!’s financial performance during Carol was also not
to the mark. Yahoo! reported a decline in revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs
at $1,076 million for the second quarter of 2011, a 5 percent decrease from the
second quarter of 2010.

 

The decline is revenue was primarily due to the revenue
share related to the search agreement with Microsoft.

 

Income from operations increased 9 percent to $191
million in the second quarter of 2011, compared to $175 million in the second quarter of
2010.

 

Net earnings per diluted share increased 18 percent to
$0.18 in the second quarter of 2011, compared to $0.15 in the second quarter of 2010.

 

Carol was instrumental in Yahoo!’s efforts to
modernize its technology platforms, with 33 additional sites across the
Americas, EMEA and Asia Pacific going live on the new global content platform,
bringing the total to 67.

 

Yahoo! continued to break its traffic records
with news events including the Royal Wedding in April. Yahoo! generated more
than 400 million page views.

 

People also turned to Yahoo! when news of the
death of Osama bin Laden broke, with almost 900 million page views on Yahoo!
News, 50 million video streams and 500 million photos viewed in the first week.

 

Yahoo! launched its new version of Mail
offering a faster, safer and easier to use version of the #1 U.S. email.

 

Carol was leading the acquisition as well.
Yahoo! acquired IntoNow, enabling Yahoo! to provide enhanced media experiences
and video programming.

 

Yahoo! acquired 5to1, an online advertising
alliance consisting exclusively of major media publishers. Built on a proprietary
publisher-controlled platform, 5to1 offers top brand advertisers premium
inventory at mass scale.

 

Google reported
revenues of $9.03 billion for the quarter ended June 30, 2011, an increase of
32 percent compared to the second quarter of 2010. In the second quarter of
2011, traffic acquisition costs (TAC) totaled $2.11 billion, or 24 percent of advertising
revenues.

Google posted revenues of $9.03 billion in the second
quarter of 2011, representing a 32 percent increase over second quarter 2010
revenues of $6.82 billion. Google reports its revenues, consistent with GAAP,
on a gross basis without deducting TAC.

Google-owned sites generated revenues of $6.23 billion,
or 69 percent of total revenues, in the second quarter of 2011. This represents
a 39 percent increase over second quarter 2010 revenues of $4.50 billion.

Google’s partner sites generated revenues, through
AdSense programs, of $2.48 billion, or 28 percent of total revenues, in the
second quarter of 2011. This represents a 20 percent increase from second
quarter 2010 network revenues of $2.06 billion.

The $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola has stunned the
technology world. Yahoo! is going slow on the acquisition space as well.

 

The new CEO will have a tough task. Despite several
criticisms, Google is continuing its dominance in the online world. Hope the
new CEO of Yahoo! will have new strategies to take the online search engine
giant and others.

 

By Baburajan K
[email protected]