Yahoo Loses Its Musical Soul

Yahoo Music Vice President Ian Rogers has resigned to join a new stealth music startup called Topspin Media as CEO. This is a blow to Yahoo - Rogers is one of the few music industry insiders who have a clear vision for what the future of music should be. In 2007 he and former Yahoo Music GM Dave Goldberg told music insiders they must abandon DRM - a year later it was reality. Last year Rogers shocked the industry again when he told industry execs: I personally don’t have any more time to give and can’t bear to see any more money spent on pathetic attempts for control instead of building consumer value. (TechCrunch)

Yahoo backs Google’s standards drive

Yahoo on Tuesday joined Google’s OpenSocial initiative for common standards for social networks, increasing the pressure on Facebook to join the movement. Google also acted to make OpenSocial appear less a vehicle for its own ambitions, announcing with Yahoo and MySpace the formation of the OpenSocial Foundation, a non-profit organisation set up by the three groups to promote the standard and its neutrality. (Financial Times)

EMI vs Google, AOL, Microsoft (The Entire Internet)

At the core of the disagreement between EMI and MP3tunes is the fact that MP3tunes stores MP3 files at the request of the user. EMI says this is a copyright infringement, but MP3tunes is not the first to offer such storage services. The actions EMI is complaining about are also performed by hundreds if not thousands of other Internet companies including all the giants like Google, AOL, and Microsoft. If MP3tunes loses our case then it sets a dangerous precedent for others; (Michael Robertson's Minute)

Microsoft Pitches Merger Vision to Yahoo at Meeting

Senior executives from Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. met Monday to discuss Microsoft's takeover offer for the Internet company, according to people familiar with the matter. Still, the meeting wasn't a negotiation, and no bankers attended, these people said. The session was intended to allow Microsoft to present its vision of a combined company, and Yahoo executives mostly listened, one of the people said. No further talks have been scheduled. (Wall Street Journal, AP)

Yahoo Looks at New Way to Survive

Microsoft, whose offer for Yahoo is now worth $41.2 billion, was preparing to escalate its takeover fight by starting a proxy contest. But in an effort to delay that move, Yahoo is considering several options, including a plan to postpone its annual meeting, people close to the company said on Tuesday. The maneuver comes as Yahoo has stepped up merger and joint venture talks with AOL, a unit of Time Warner, these people said. (NY Times)

Microsoft nears hostile bid for Yahoo

To force through its offer, Microsoft is now preparing to submit its own directors for approval at the next Yahoo shareholder meeting. It has until March 13 to trigger that proxy fight, with Yahoo’s shareholder meeting normally held in June. The software company is also considering launching an exchange offer directly to Yahoo’s shareholders, inviting them to accept its cash and stock bid, although the internet company’s poison pill would stop Microsoft gaining control without board-level support. (Financial Times)

Yahoo buys Maven Networks for $160 million

Yahoo has acquired Maven Networks for $160 million in a deal that will help the search provider boost its video advertising capabilities. Media companies including Fox News, CBS Sports, and Sony BMG use Maven's platform to manage, distribute, and earn advertising revenue from their online video content. The platform includes an advertising insertion engine, as well as inventory management and reporting tools. (InfoWorld)

Microsoft set to approach Yahoo shareholders

Microsoft is gearing up to take its bid to acquire Yahoo directly to the Silicon Valley company’s shareholders after the expected rejection by the Yahoo board of the software giant’s $31 a share offer. Yahoo intends to turn down officially the unsolicited bid on Monday, according to a person close to the situation. (Financial Times)

Microsoft warns Yahoo on $42bn offer

Microsoft described Yahoo’s rejection on Monday of its unsolicited offer as “unfortunate”. The software company warned that it was prepared to bypass the internet company’s board to complete a transaction currently valued at $41.8bn. Microsoft was responding to a Yahoo statement that the software group’s February 1 proposal “substantially undervalues” the internet company. (Financial Times)

Google Bashes Microsoft's Yahoo Bid

Google's chief legal officer wrote in a blog: "Microsoft's hostile bid for Yahoo raises troubling questions. This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another." Google's statement clearly warns those willing to listen that Microsoft is trying to exert monopolistic power on the industry and quash innovation. (ClickZ)

Microsoft not only option, Yahoo says

Jerry Yang, Yahoo chief executive, on Wednesday tried to boost declining morale at the besieged internet company, by telling staff in a message that a number of alternatives to Microsoft’s bid were being considered. “No decisions have been made about Microsoft’s proposal,” he said. (Financial Times)

Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for $44,6bn

Microsoft has offered to buy Yahoo for around $44,6bn in cash and shares, to better compete with Google in the market for online services. Yahoo says that its board will carefully evaluate Microsoft’s proposal, which it describes as unsolicited. (IDG News, AP)

Yahoo! Music switches to Rhapsody-run service

Yahoo! is closing down its subscription Yahoo! Music service and has signed a deal with Rhapsody for it to take over the online giant's music offerings. Silicon Valley Insider estimates the Yahoo! unit may be worth between USD66m and USD110m. The deal comes at the same time as Yahoo! is expected to announce its rumoured acquisition of plug-in music app, FoxyTunes. (StrategyEye, Forbes, Billboard)

Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google, DoubleClick Mergers: The “new media” Media Monopoly

Proposed acquisition by Microsoft of Yahoo!, if consummated, will create a powerful interactive Internet interactive duopoly in online media. Google and Microsoft will have inordinate power to shape the online communications marketplace, including journalism, entertainment and advertising. (Digital Destiny)

Yahoo Eyeing Online Music Service

Yahoo Inc., is in early discussions with major record labels over offering unprotected MP3s either for sale or for free as part of an ad-supported service, two record company executives familiar with the talks said Wednesday. The talks, held as recently as last month, were preliminary because Yahoo is still working out the details, said the executives, who requested anonymity. Yahoo hopes to launch the service this year, they said. (Billboard)

Yahoo shake-up will cut staff by 5%

Yahoo is expected to cut as much as 5 per cent of its workforce as Jerry Yang, chief executive, continues to reorganise the internet company to compete better with Microsoft and Google. Sources close to the company said on Tuesday job cuts would be in the hundreds, with reports suggesting there could be 500 to 700 redundancies among the 14,000-strong workforce. (Financial Times)

Creating amazing music blog experiences

Today we're releasing a piece of very early, very experimental (possibly dodgy) alpha software -- a desktop application called Blog Remix written using Adobe AIR. Blog Remix immerses you in an active music blog experience. It merges blog posts and MP3s and lets you mix together different tracks or blog entries from your favorite MP3 blogs. Save the mix for yourself, or share it with the rest of us as an XSPF playlist, podcast, or feed (using Atom or RSS). (Next Yahoo Blog)

Big Changes Appear Imminent At Yahoo! Music

Yahoo Music, which has failed to gain real traction and gotten even less respect thus far, seems poised for some kind of announcement or left turn. Yahoo exec Ian Rogers gave some hints in a convoluted but fascinating presentation at Aspen Live which he recapped on his bog Fistfulayen. (Fistfulayen)

MusicIP Gets Wordy, Brokers LyricFind Partnership

Lyrics have always been integral to the music listening experience, yet homegrown sites have dominated the landscape since the 90s. Now, bigger players are getting into the game, including Gracenote, Yahoo, and RealNetworks. The latest deal involves music intelligence and discovery provider MusicIP, which has now brokered a partnership with LyricFind. (Digital Music News)

Yahoo Releases Browser Based MP3 Player

This is clearly just a first step in whatever Yahoo’s grand plans are around the future of their music service, but today they released some code to embed a very simple Javascript based MP3 player on any website. The player finds MP3s on a given web page, creates a playlist and a very simple overlay to play the songs. A small play icon is placed next to every MP3 link, and the player itself hovers over the bottom left of the page. (TechCrunch)