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The Mother Of All Political Prediction Engines
Posted: 21st of February, 2012An in-depth look at The Signal, the Yahoo! News prediction blog.
Editor’s note: Yahoos are known for producing great work in a pinch. But do you ever wonder what it takes to make the impossible possible? In our new behind-the-scenes series, we take a look at the people and teams for whom no obstacle is too big. This time we’re taking a look at The Signal, a Yahoo! News predictions blog featuring real-time forecasts and sentiment on politics, economics, and more. Yahoo! Economist David Rothschild and Yahoo! Principal Research Scientist David Pennock keep readers up-to-date on the very latest in the 2012 race to the White House.
We interviewed David Rothschild to learn more about the work he and David Pennock do for The Signal. This Friday, February 17, follow @YahooInc on Twitter for a special interview with @pennockd and @DavMicRot at 1:30 p.m. (Pacific).
Q: The Signal has been referred to as the “mother of all political prediction engines.” What does your team do that’s different from the standard polls we hear about?
A: Standard polls provide very useful raw data points for predicting elections, but are not themselves predictions. Polls ask people how they would vote if an election were held that day. But, we actually know a lot about how the world will change between the poll and Election Day. First, there are known biases between polls and outcomes such as the anti-incumbency bias; polls for incumbents are systemically lower than how incumbents perform on Election Day. When we utilize just polls to create a prediction that is just one of a few biases we can address. Second, we know things like how much money the candidates have left; a candidate with access to a lot more money should be expected to shift voters his/her way before Election Day. We know about scandals and unique policy positions that may not have trickled down to the average voter yet.
Our models incorporate this extra information by utilizing—along with polls—prediction markets, fundamental models, and Yahoo! Games/polls. Think of a prediction market as a stock exchange where people trade candidates instead of companies. Prediction markets incorporate polling data, but also disaggregate data about the candidates and the campaign; further, it does it in real-time. Fundamental models use information such as past election results, economic indicators, ideological indicators and biographical information about the candidates. They are remarkably accurate at predicting elections, even though we create the forecast with data that is available several months prior to the election. Yahoo! Games/polls are new interactive games that will harness the information of Yahoo! users to further refine our predictions.
Combined, our predictions stand out for several reasons. First, they are the most accurate prediction available, with the wealth of information we utilize. Second, they are going to be updating in real-time. Third, they are versatile covering many topics and displaying many different applicable predictions on the same events. Finally, they are going to be displayed in an easy to understand way with data visualizations.
Q: How long has it taken you to perfect The Signal? In other words, how long has it been from concept to now?
A: I pitched The Signal to Yahoo! News during my first week at Yahoo! this summer. David Pennock and I began writing articles on the data about three months after I arrived at Yahoo! and we launched The Signal about five months after I arrived at Yahoo!. We have been refining and adding to it ever since then
Yet, in actuality, The Signal is an outgrowth of the work that David Pennock and I have been doing for years. The models and theories that form the basis of the project have been our life’s work.
Q: Now that football season is over, do you think people will be addicted to Fantasy Politics just like they have been to Fantasy Football?
A: Yes. The game we are developing from the Predictalot platform is going to have some really exciting hooks. There will be two distinct levels one for casual users and one for hard core users. Both will allow people to gain some ownership in the election which we hope to lead to even more engagement in the campaigns. First, since our games are all tied to real-time action, users will be able to see their portfolios move in real-time, during debates, after major gaffes and scandals, and during Election Day. Second, there will be interesting contrasts that users will be able to debate about, like “Will Obama win Florida?” or “Will Obama win Florida and Ohio?” or “Will Obama win Florida if the unemployment rate is above 8 percent?” Third, our unique scoring structure will make it easy to play both head-to-head with your buddies, in small groups, or against a universal scoreboard. Whatever is most exciting to the user.
Since you mentioned Fantasy Sports, we are very excited that we have been able to converse regularly with the folks at Fantasy Sports while we build our Fantasy Politics game. What an amazing asset it is for us to get advice from the leaders in the industry. We’re working to see how we can integrate some of their expertise in our work moving forward.
Q: Who do you think will win the Republican nomination, and further, who will be our next president?
A: As of February 7 at 3:47 PM ET Mitt Romney is 72.8 percent likely to be the Republican nominee and Barack Obama is 61.5 percent likely to win reelection. Further, you did not ask, but I think the Philadelphia Phillies are 15.5 percent likely to win the World Series, with the New York Yankees close behind at 12.8 percent.
Q: What other events does the Yahoo! Predict team work on that Yahoos may not know about?
A: We are starting on the major political elections but we will be expanding rapidly into other events. We have already spoken about sports in several columns (and the previous question). We are adding economic indicators and financial indicators soon. And, to answer the most pertinent question, The Artist is 83.5 percent likely to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, which I really enjoyed, so I recommend you see it before the awards show!
Q: What inspires you to do your best work? Or, more generally, what inspires the team?
A: We have two intertwined goals: become a meaningful property for Yahoo! and utilize Yahoo! Signal for research.
First, Yahoo! Signal is an amazing way to showcase the work many talented people in Yahoo! Labs and Yahoo! News who are interested in bringing objective data analysis to our 700 million users. We have some of the top machine learning computer science PhDs in the world working on new backend algorithms for our Fantasy Politics. We have leading data mining computer scientists PhDs working on new ways to utilize social data. We have sociologist PhDs thinking about what goes viral and marketing, psychologist, and computer scientist PhDs thinking about design and how people understand probability. We have economist PhDs working on prediction models. The list goes on, but it is tied together with excellent Yahoo! News editors who help us communicate cutting edge research to the general Yahoo! audience.
And, it’s working! Our traffic over the first few months has been strong. Our real-time interest index, sentiment index, and predictions are just coming online now. We expect that that will not only drive readers, but engaged readers, who will come back often during major events.
Second, Yahoo! Signal is a functioning laboratory for Yahoo! Labs. It allows us to run field experiments on cutting edge polls and prediction games. These allow our users to not only engage themselves, but actually advance our academic work in these fields. Further, we are always looking for new tools to engage our users, new ways to get them to understand and test Yahoo!’s cutting edge work.
Editor’s note: Yahoos are known for producing great work in a pinch. But do you ever wonder what it takes to make the impossible possible? In our new behind-the-scenes series, we take a look at the people and teams for whom no obstacle is too big. This time we’re taking a look at The Signal, a Yahoo! News predictions blog featuring real-time forecasts and sentiment on politics, economics, and more. Yahoo! Economist David Rothschild and Yahoo! Principal Research Scientist David Pennock keep readers up-to-date on the very latest in the 2012 race to the White House.
We interviewed David Rothschild to learn more about the work he and David Pennock do for The Signal. This Friday, February 17, follow @YahooInc on Twitter for a special interview with @pennockd and @DavMicRot at 1:30 p.m. (Pacific).
Q: The Signal has been referred to as the “mother of all political prediction engines.” What does your team do that’s different from the standard polls we hear about?
A: Standard polls provide very useful raw data points for predicting elections, but are not themselves predictions. Polls ask people how they would vote if an election were held that day. But, we actually know a lot about how the world will change between the poll and Election Day. First, there are known biases between polls and outcomes such as the anti-incumbency bias; polls for incumbents are systemically lower than how incumbents perform on Election Day. When we utilize just polls to create a prediction that is just one of a few biases we can address. Second, we know things like how much money the candidates have left; a candidate with access to a lot more money should be expected to shift voters his/her way before Election Day. We know about scandals and unique policy positions that may not have trickled down to the average voter yet.
Our models incorporate this extra information by utilizing—along with polls—prediction markets, fundamental models, and Yahoo! Games/polls. Think of a prediction market as a stock exchange where people trade candidates instead of companies. Prediction markets incorporate polling data, but also disaggregate data about the candidates and the campaign; further, it does it in real-time. Fundamental models use information such as past election results, economic indicators, ideological indicators and biographical information about the candidates. They are remarkably accurate at predicting elections, even though we create the forecast with data that is available several months prior to the election. Yahoo! Games/polls are new interactive games that will harness the information of Yahoo! users to further refine our predictions.
Combined, our predictions stand out for several reasons. First, they are the most accurate prediction available, with the wealth of information we utilize. Second, they are going to be updating in real-time. Third, they are versatile covering many topics and displaying many different applicable predictions on the same events. Finally, they are going to be displayed in an easy to understand way with data visualizations.
Q: How long has it taken you to perfect The Signal? In other words, how long has it been from concept to now?
A: I pitched The Signal to Yahoo! News during my first week at Yahoo! this summer. David Pennock and I began writing articles on the data about three months after I arrived at Yahoo! and we launched The Signal about five months after I arrived at Yahoo!. We have been refining and adding to it ever since then
Yet, in actuality, The Signal is an outgrowth of the work that David Pennock and I have been doing for years. The models and theories that form the basis of the project have been our life’s work.
Q: Now that football season is over, do you think people will be addicted to Fantasy Politics just like they have been to Fantasy Football?
A: Yes. The game we are developing from the Predictalot platform is going to have some really exciting hooks. There will be two distinct levels one for casual users and one for hard core users. Both will allow people to gain some ownership in the election which we hope to lead to even more engagement in the campaigns. First, since our games are all tied to real-time action, users will be able to see their portfolios move in real-time, during debates, after major gaffes and scandals, and during Election Day. Second, there will be interesting contrasts that users will be able to debate about, like “Will Obama win Florida?” or “Will Obama win Florida and Ohio?” or “Will Obama win Florida if the unemployment rate is above 8 percent?” Third, our unique scoring structure will make it easy to play both head-to-head with your buddies, in small groups, or against a universal scoreboard. Whatever is most exciting to the user.
Since you mentioned Fantasy Sports, we are very excited that we have been able to converse regularly with the folks at Fantasy Sports while we build our Fantasy Politics game. What an amazing asset it is for us to get advice from the leaders in the industry. We’re working to see how we can integrate some of their expertise in our work moving forward.
Q: Who do you think will win the Republican nomination, and further, who will be our next president?
A: As of February 7 at 3:47 PM ET Mitt Romney is 72.8 percent likely to be the Republican nominee and Barack Obama is 61.5 percent likely to win reelection. Further, you did not ask, but I think the Philadelphia Phillies are 15.5 percent likely to win the World Series, with the New York Yankees close behind at 12.8 percent.
Q: What other events does the Yahoo! Predict team work on that Yahoos may not know about?
A: We are starting on the major political elections but we will be expanding rapidly into other events. We have already spoken about sports in several columns (and the previous question). We are adding economic indicators and financial indicators soon. And, to answer the most pertinent question, The Artist is 83.5 percent likely to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, which I really enjoyed, so I recommend you see it before the awards show!
Q: What inspires you to do your best work? Or, more generally, what inspires the team?
A: We have two intertwined goals: become a meaningful property for Yahoo! and utilize Yahoo! Signal for research.
First, Yahoo! Signal is an amazing way to showcase the work many talented people in Yahoo! Labs and Yahoo! News who are interested in bringing objective data analysis to our 700 million users. We have some of the top machine learning computer science PhDs in the world working on new backend algorithms for our Fantasy Politics. We have leading data mining computer scientists PhDs working on new ways to utilize social data. We have sociologist PhDs thinking about what goes viral and marketing, psychologist, and computer scientist PhDs thinking about design and how people understand probability. We have economist PhDs working on prediction models. The list goes on, but it is tied together with excellent Yahoo! News editors who help us communicate cutting edge research to the general Yahoo! audience.
And, it’s working! Our traffic over the first few months has been strong. Our real-time interest index, sentiment index, and predictions are just coming online now. We expect that that will not only drive readers, but engaged readers, who will come back often during major events.
Second, Yahoo! Signal is a functioning laboratory for Yahoo! Labs. It allows us to run field experiments on cutting edge polls and prediction games. These allow our users to not only engage themselves, but actually advance our academic work in these fields. Further, we are always looking for new tools to engage our users, new ways to get them to understand and test Yahoo!’s cutting edge work.
Yahoos Out in Force in Support of TechWomen
Posted: 17th of February, 2012by Jessica Roland
Yahoos were out in force at the Feb 13 TechWomen briefing, held at Microsoft's Mountain View facility, after a similar session earlier in the day in San Francisco. TechWomen is a program sponsored by the US Department of State, in conjunction with the Institute for International Education and the Anita Borg Institute. Its purpose is to bring talented technical women from the Middle East and North Africa regions to the US for a life-changing professional and cultural mentoring experience.
The goal of the TechWomen briefing was to inform potential Silicon Valley mentors about the benefits of the experience and how to apply. The briefing event began with a stellar line-up of officials from the Department of State and IIE, and a personal video plea for involvement from Hillary Clinton. The main event was a panel discussion led by Sheila Casey of the State Department, with former mentor panelists from NetApp, Juniper Networks, startup Survivify, and our own Yahoo Fabiola Addamo, who was a cultural mentor last year. As Fabi says: "From my own experience as an immigrant, coming to this country with a bagful of dreams, I wanted to share (with mentees) that here it is possible to create your career."
There are 1500 potential mentees currently completing applications for the program, in 8 MENA countries. They will go through a rigorous selection process with expert panels and their local US embassies, getting checked on their educational and professional background, their communication skills (via essays) and whether they are "giving back" to their communities and cultures. 84 women out of the 1500 will be selected, and then paired with local mentors for a transformational 5-week program of professional projects and cultural immersion, starting September 10. The mentees have generally moved heaven and earth, in cultures where women's paths may be limited, to be able to take time from their jobs, their startups, their theses, their spouses and children to be part of this experience. They are carefully matched with the most compatible mentors in order to create the most fruitful and productive mentor-mentee learning partnerships.
Yahoo had 5 mentor participants in 2011, and one mentee, Rayya Abu Ghosh, a Yahoo! employee in Jordan. Rayya says: " TechWomen gave me great exposure to people, references and tools to use in my career. TechWomen was explosively filled with inspiration and positive energy that spread from the mentors and organizers to the mentees and right back!... (It's a) great cultural exchange... where Arab women meet American women from different cultural backgrounds and share each others' personal beliefs and traditions".
What do the mentors get out of the program? That was an easy question for the panelists, who universally spoke of the mentee's contagious energy and desire to learn, their camaraderie, their amazement at our freedoms and variety of lifestyles. Because they are paired with these high-profile mentees, the mentors also benefitted from exceptional networking opportunities both within and outside their companies. On a larger scale, our country benefits from the people-to-people relationships created by the program, which helps inspire the mentees to be professional pioneers in their home countries and trailblaze a brighter future for women everywhere.
If you are interested in becoming a mentor, please visit the TechWomen website to learn more.
Editors note: Blog post originally posted in the WIT blog here.
Yahoos were out in force at the Feb 13 TechWomen briefing, held at Microsoft's Mountain View facility, after a similar session earlier in the day in San Francisco. TechWomen is a program sponsored by the US Department of State, in conjunction with the Institute for International Education and the Anita Borg Institute. Its purpose is to bring talented technical women from the Middle East and North Africa regions to the US for a life-changing professional and cultural mentoring experience.
The goal of the TechWomen briefing was to inform potential Silicon Valley mentors about the benefits of the experience and how to apply. The briefing event began with a stellar line-up of officials from the Department of State and IIE, and a personal video plea for involvement from Hillary Clinton. The main event was a panel discussion led by Sheila Casey of the State Department, with former mentor panelists from NetApp, Juniper Networks, startup Survivify, and our own Yahoo Fabiola Addamo, who was a cultural mentor last year. As Fabi says: "From my own experience as an immigrant, coming to this country with a bagful of dreams, I wanted to share (with mentees) that here it is possible to create your career."
There are 1500 potential mentees currently completing applications for the program, in 8 MENA countries. They will go through a rigorous selection process with expert panels and their local US embassies, getting checked on their educational and professional background, their communication skills (via essays) and whether they are "giving back" to their communities and cultures. 84 women out of the 1500 will be selected, and then paired with local mentors for a transformational 5-week program of professional projects and cultural immersion, starting September 10. The mentees have generally moved heaven and earth, in cultures where women's paths may be limited, to be able to take time from their jobs, their startups, their theses, their spouses and children to be part of this experience. They are carefully matched with the most compatible mentors in order to create the most fruitful and productive mentor-mentee learning partnerships.
Yahoo had 5 mentor participants in 2011, and one mentee, Rayya Abu Ghosh, a Yahoo! employee in Jordan. Rayya says: " TechWomen gave me great exposure to people, references and tools to use in my career. TechWomen was explosively filled with inspiration and positive energy that spread from the mentors and organizers to the mentees and right back!... (It's a) great cultural exchange... where Arab women meet American women from different cultural backgrounds and share each others' personal beliefs and traditions".
What do the mentors get out of the program? That was an easy question for the panelists, who universally spoke of the mentee's contagious energy and desire to learn, their camaraderie, their amazement at our freedoms and variety of lifestyles. Because they are paired with these high-profile mentees, the mentors also benefitted from exceptional networking opportunities both within and outside their companies. On a larger scale, our country benefits from the people-to-people relationships created by the program, which helps inspire the mentees to be professional pioneers in their home countries and trailblaze a brighter future for women everywhere.
If you are interested in becoming a mentor, please visit the TechWomen website to learn more.
Editors note: Blog post originally posted in the WIT blog here.
Blake Irving Shares His Vision with the SF Chronicle
Posted: 13th of February, 2012Quoted from the SF Chronicle article:
Two years ago, Blake Irving had more time to spend mornings surfing on the Malibu coast. That was before Yahoo's then-Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz lured him back into the corporate world, as chief product officer of the Sunnyvale company.
Now the industry veteran stands at the center of the efforts to turn around the struggling Internet pioneer.
For months, the public chatter surrounding Yahoo has focused on executive turnover and exploration of its "strategic options." Those themes continued last week with the departure of four more board members - following Bartz and co-founder Jerry Yang out the door - and the emergence of details about how the company might unload its lucrative stakes in Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan.
But the real war in the technology space begins and ends with products. Without new ways of drawing users and advertisers, the rest won't add up to much.
That's where Irving comes in. He helped Microsoft build its vast online operations as vice president of the software giant's Windows Live Platform group, before becoming a business professor at Pepperdine University in Malibu.
In an interview with The Chronicle, he laid out his vision for creating "deeply personal digital experiences" that deliver on five points: personal relevance through science and data; premium user experiences; a mobile-first mind-set; social features that better resemble how we interact in the real world; and an "ecosystem" that allows other companies to work within Yahoo's tools...
To read the entire article click here.
To hear what Blake has to say about Livestand and Living Ads click here.
Two years ago, Blake Irving had more time to spend mornings surfing on the Malibu coast. That was before Yahoo's then-Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz lured him back into the corporate world, as chief product officer of the Sunnyvale company.
Now the industry veteran stands at the center of the efforts to turn around the struggling Internet pioneer.
For months, the public chatter surrounding Yahoo has focused on executive turnover and exploration of its "strategic options." Those themes continued last week with the departure of four more board members - following Bartz and co-founder Jerry Yang out the door - and the emergence of details about how the company might unload its lucrative stakes in Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan.
But the real war in the technology space begins and ends with products. Without new ways of drawing users and advertisers, the rest won't add up to much.
That's where Irving comes in. He helped Microsoft build its vast online operations as vice president of the software giant's Windows Live Platform group, before becoming a business professor at Pepperdine University in Malibu.
In an interview with The Chronicle, he laid out his vision for creating "deeply personal digital experiences" that deliver on five points: personal relevance through science and data; premium user experiences; a mobile-first mind-set; social features that better resemble how we interact in the real world; and an "ecosystem" that allows other companies to work within Yahoo's tools...
To read the entire article click here.
To hear what Blake has to say about Livestand and Living Ads click here.
What Makes You Click?
Posted: 13th of February, 2012Visualizing How Yahoo! Serves Up 13,000,000 Unique Story Combinations, Every Single Day
Ever wondered how Yahoo! decides which stories to put on its front page each day? Or why your Red Sox team scores or daily omg! fix usually appears up front?
That’s because the Yahoo! page you see each time you visit yahoo.com is likely different than the person sitting next to you. In fact, more than 13,000,000 personalized story combinations are delivered every day on the Today Module (the little box at the top of our homepage displaying featured stories), and it happens within milliseconds of you visiting our site. The minute you log into your Yahoo! account, personalization goes a whole level deeper.
We just unveiled an innovative way to visualize the magic that makes it all work, and what it means for you.
Go ahead and click here to check it out. The tool is populated in near real-time, so you can discover what the most popular story is, right now. For instance, you might be interested to learn that today more than 12 million people have seen an article on the $26 billion mortgage foreclosure deal reached between the U.S. government and leading banks. Or that 92 million people saw a video on a test driver’s close call with a deer while filming a commercial.
Yahoo! creates uniquely meaningful experiences for every single person, at this scale. How? It’s simple, really. We do it with deep science and great engineering.
The Magic Behind It: C.O.R.E.
Initially developed within Yahoo! Labs, the award winning science and research group within Yahoo!, C.O.R.E. (Content Optimization and Relevance Engine) is an innovative suite of technologies that allows us to feature the stories most likely to be interesting to you.
Today, C.O.R.E. powers content on many Yahoo! properties, including Yahoo! News and the Today Module. There, editors write and gather the most important and engaging stories of the day, and C.O.R.E. determines how stories should be ordered, dependent on each user. Similarly, C.O.R.E. figures out which story categories (i.e. technology, health, finance, or entertainment) should be displayed prominently on the page to help deepen engagement for each viewer.
What’s unique here is not just the innovative C.O.R.E. algorithms that crunch this amount of data all day, every day - but that it’s also the perfect marriage of deep science and a world-class editorial team.
Editors use C.O.R.E. and their editorial judgment to ensure that important stories are front and center. For example, Yahoo! editors made sure that the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death was on everyone’s page the moment the news broke. An algorithm couldn’t have done that.
So how does C.O.R.E actually work?
C.O.R.E. measures how often users click on stories overall and within different segments of the population. In just a few visits to yahoo.com, you’ll start to see tailored content appear just for you. And the more time you spend, the better it gets.
Since C.O.R.E. was implemented in 2008, people click on the Today Module four times more often than they used to – in fact, more than 1 billion times per month! To put that in context, every eight minutes C.O.R.E. registers more clicks on the Yahoo! homepage than there are words in the entire English language.
Rather than list out the millions of possible combinations, we created an interactive visualization that allows you to experiment with C.O.R.E. You can explore the day’s most popular stories or put yourself in someone else’s shoes and see Yahoo! through their eyes.
Go behind the scenes and drill into the data that powers the personal content experiences of 700 million users here: http://visualize.yahoo.com/core
Steven Lyons,Sr. Product Manager, C.O.R.E.
Ever wondered how Yahoo! decides which stories to put on its front page each day? Or why your Red Sox team scores or daily omg! fix usually appears up front?
That’s because the Yahoo! page you see each time you visit yahoo.com is likely different than the person sitting next to you. In fact, more than 13,000,000 personalized story combinations are delivered every day on the Today Module (the little box at the top of our homepage displaying featured stories), and it happens within milliseconds of you visiting our site. The minute you log into your Yahoo! account, personalization goes a whole level deeper.
We just unveiled an innovative way to visualize the magic that makes it all work, and what it means for you.
Go ahead and click here to check it out. The tool is populated in near real-time, so you can discover what the most popular story is, right now. For instance, you might be interested to learn that today more than 12 million people have seen an article on the $26 billion mortgage foreclosure deal reached between the U.S. government and leading banks. Or that 92 million people saw a video on a test driver’s close call with a deer while filming a commercial.
Yahoo! creates uniquely meaningful experiences for every single person, at this scale. How? It’s simple, really. We do it with deep science and great engineering.
The Magic Behind It: C.O.R.E.
Initially developed within Yahoo! Labs, the award winning science and research group within Yahoo!, C.O.R.E. (Content Optimization and Relevance Engine) is an innovative suite of technologies that allows us to feature the stories most likely to be interesting to you.
Today, C.O.R.E. powers content on many Yahoo! properties, including Yahoo! News and the Today Module. There, editors write and gather the most important and engaging stories of the day, and C.O.R.E. determines how stories should be ordered, dependent on each user. Similarly, C.O.R.E. figures out which story categories (i.e. technology, health, finance, or entertainment) should be displayed prominently on the page to help deepen engagement for each viewer.
What’s unique here is not just the innovative C.O.R.E. algorithms that crunch this amount of data all day, every day - but that it’s also the perfect marriage of deep science and a world-class editorial team.
Editors use C.O.R.E. and their editorial judgment to ensure that important stories are front and center. For example, Yahoo! editors made sure that the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death was on everyone’s page the moment the news broke. An algorithm couldn’t have done that.
So how does C.O.R.E actually work?
C.O.R.E. measures how often users click on stories overall and within different segments of the population. In just a few visits to yahoo.com, you’ll start to see tailored content appear just for you. And the more time you spend, the better it gets.
Since C.O.R.E. was implemented in 2008, people click on the Today Module four times more often than they used to – in fact, more than 1 billion times per month! To put that in context, every eight minutes C.O.R.E. registers more clicks on the Yahoo! homepage than there are words in the entire English language.
Rather than list out the millions of possible combinations, we created an interactive visualization that allows you to experiment with C.O.R.E. You can explore the day’s most popular stories or put yourself in someone else’s shoes and see Yahoo! through their eyes.
Go behind the scenes and drill into the data that powers the personal content experiences of 700 million users here: http://visualize.yahoo.com/core
Steven Lyons,Sr. Product Manager, C.O.R.E.
Calling all internationally-minded Tech gals!
Posted: 9th of February, 2012Calling all internationally-minded Tech gals! You can be a life-changing mentor in the US State Department’s TechWomen program. Please join Yahoo! and other global tech firms at the information session on Monday February 13. Details here: http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/wit/posts/2012/02/global-gals-techwomen-needs-you/. RSVP by Feb 9!
Yahoo! Change Your World – Cairo 2012: Revolutionary Minds in Action
Posted: 7th of February, 2012by fabiolaa
Few women know their true worth. Their potential for power, their upstanding place in society. But for a few days, in Egypt-- a place of current revolution -- women decided to speak up. Ebele Okobi opened up the Yahoo! Business & Human Rights Summit on Women and Social /Digital Media in Cairo with a powerful statement – “A determined woman is a force of nature.” These simple, yet eloquent words touched me deeply. It is funny how emotion and fact can move women to action. That is just the sort of character trait that I found in the women I met in Cairo. The summit displayed a carousel of progressive voices. Women from across the globe (Egypt, Middle East, North Africa, the U.S., Europe) gathered and spoke about human rights/social justice activism, blogging, journalism, entrepreneurship, safety online, and shared views on how to use technology and media platforms to support virtual communication without borders. The speakers had different backgrounds and stories, but the audience could clearly map a common denominator, that is the questions raised out loud to make everyone think critically.
The summit moved from panel to panel and I kept hearing the same message over and over, “Women need organizational structure” and the question, “What triggers a paradigm shift in many women’s lives?”
Here is my summary in 3 steps:
1. Understanding who you are and what inspires you.
2. Aligning with other like- minded women.3. Connecting without borders and standing for each other according to your own comfort level (front line or behind the scene).
There was no shame during the summit, women felt free to express themselves: public female figures (and not) shared their dreams and spoke out loud their revolutionary minds. Can just having a voice beat fear? Yes! Fearful people usually hide behind other‘s widely accepted ideas. I listened to Manal Al-Sharif, a professional Saudi woman, who is leading the campaign to support women’s drivers and it just hit me, how is it possible that some women in 2012 have limited freedom of movement? I said to myself stop arguing with reality and accept it; it is what it is and only action can make a change. Manal acted and she was jailed for 9 days. She gained my respect for acting upon her belief. She helped me believe that Facebook campaigns, youtube videos, social and media platforms are the foundations we can use to support the global virtual alignment between women involved in social justice and human rights causes.
The Internet is virtual power. The Egyptians are a great example of how to use the internet to gather like-minded people and ideas, and make a real impact on issues that oppress their people. Women are powerful because we are a main voice of society. Ideas and modern minds will continue to expand as long as we keep sharing our realities, even if we risk punishment and peril. Experience sharing is infectious because it creates a sense of belonging in other women’s minds around the globe – if facts and emotion combine, we cannot shake the pain of truth. I am convinced that creating awareness and sharing stories must be a duty for all women without regard for geographical borders.
I participated myself as speaker in the last panel “What’s next” and I conveyed 3 important messages:
I ask you: what is really next?
I have decided:
Next is to continue a respectful conversation with an audience made of men and women; Next is creating new mentorship programs while growing existing ones (see Techwomen); Next is breaking away from the concept of communication based on physical vicinity; Next is spreading art among youth as powerful communication tool; Next is Yahoo! leading discussions and creating action items from this Cairo summit.
I believe that the internet, women, and curiosity are key ingredients to an explosive but peaceful change in society!
Editors Note: Click here for the original post on the WIT blog.
Few women know their true worth. Their potential for power, their upstanding place in society. But for a few days, in Egypt-- a place of current revolution -- women decided to speak up. Ebele Okobi opened up the Yahoo! Business & Human Rights Summit on Women and Social /Digital Media in Cairo with a powerful statement – “A determined woman is a force of nature.” These simple, yet eloquent words touched me deeply. It is funny how emotion and fact can move women to action. That is just the sort of character trait that I found in the women I met in Cairo. The summit displayed a carousel of progressive voices. Women from across the globe (Egypt, Middle East, North Africa, the U.S., Europe) gathered and spoke about human rights/social justice activism, blogging, journalism, entrepreneurship, safety online, and shared views on how to use technology and media platforms to support virtual communication without borders. The speakers had different backgrounds and stories, but the audience could clearly map a common denominator, that is the questions raised out loud to make everyone think critically.
- What is a woman? What is your own definition?
- Should we move away from the false fear driven equation women=loss of honor in society?
- What about transforming fears into a renewed energy for women empowerment and adopting a changed perspective in everyday life?
- What about women who bring honor to society and win a Nobel peace prize?
- What about women who understand who they are and are driven by motivation and strong will?
The summit moved from panel to panel and I kept hearing the same message over and over, “Women need organizational structure” and the question, “What triggers a paradigm shift in many women’s lives?”
Here is my summary in 3 steps:
1. Understanding who you are and what inspires you.
2. Aligning with other like- minded women.3. Connecting without borders and standing for each other according to your own comfort level (front line or behind the scene).
There was no shame during the summit, women felt free to express themselves: public female figures (and not) shared their dreams and spoke out loud their revolutionary minds. Can just having a voice beat fear? Yes! Fearful people usually hide behind other‘s widely accepted ideas. I listened to Manal Al-Sharif, a professional Saudi woman, who is leading the campaign to support women’s drivers and it just hit me, how is it possible that some women in 2012 have limited freedom of movement? I said to myself stop arguing with reality and accept it; it is what it is and only action can make a change. Manal acted and she was jailed for 9 days. She gained my respect for acting upon her belief. She helped me believe that Facebook campaigns, youtube videos, social and media platforms are the foundations we can use to support the global virtual alignment between women involved in social justice and human rights causes.
The Internet is virtual power. The Egyptians are a great example of how to use the internet to gather like-minded people and ideas, and make a real impact on issues that oppress their people. Women are powerful because we are a main voice of society. Ideas and modern minds will continue to expand as long as we keep sharing our realities, even if we risk punishment and peril. Experience sharing is infectious because it creates a sense of belonging in other women’s minds around the globe – if facts and emotion combine, we cannot shake the pain of truth. I am convinced that creating awareness and sharing stories must be a duty for all women without regard for geographical borders.
I participated myself as speaker in the last panel “What’s next” and I conveyed 3 important messages:
- Who I am.
- Why I was in Cairo.
- My dream for the future.
I ask you: what is really next?
I have decided:
Next is to continue a respectful conversation with an audience made of men and women; Next is creating new mentorship programs while growing existing ones (see Techwomen); Next is breaking away from the concept of communication based on physical vicinity; Next is spreading art among youth as powerful communication tool; Next is Yahoo! leading discussions and creating action items from this Cairo summit.
I believe that the internet, women, and curiosity are key ingredients to an explosive but peaceful change in society!
Editors Note: Click here for the original post on the WIT blog.
Yahoo! Brings the Super Bowl to You!
Posted: 3rd of February, 2012There's a lot Yahoo! is bringing you for the Super Bowl!
Check out what's up over at the Yodel Anecdotal Blog...
"In addition to our award-winning sports reporting, Yahoo! is going to be all over Super Bowl XLVI with insider access to one of the hottest events of the year. Here’s a look at everything we’ve got going on before, during, and after the game:
Bud Light Hotel Super Bowl concert broadcast live on Yahoo!: The night before the Super Bowl, Bud Light will host a special concert featuring 50 Cent, Lil Jon, and Pitbull that will be broadcast live only on omg! From Yahoo!. The concert can be seen on both omg! From Yahoo! and Yahoo! Screen, beginning at 10 pm EST on Saturday, February 4th.
Daily coverage: omg! From Yahoo! and Yahoo! Sports will feature daily coverage from the Bud Light Hotel, including “blue-carpet” celebrity interviews, celebrity predictions, an omg! photo gallery collection, and coverage of all the weekend’s parties..." for full article click here.
Also, IntoNow is featuring some amazing content before and during the game!
You'll be able to rate the commercials during the game AND a chance to win Pepsi MAX for life! Find out how here, but hurry, you need to download the app and be ready to go by the NFL Honors award show, which is being hosted by Alec Baldwin and will air on Saturday, February 4 at 9:00 PM EST on NBC.
What are you waiting for, it's almost game day!
Check out what's up over at the Yodel Anecdotal Blog...
"In addition to our award-winning sports reporting, Yahoo! is going to be all over Super Bowl XLVI with insider access to one of the hottest events of the year. Here’s a look at everything we’ve got going on before, during, and after the game:
Bud Light Hotel Super Bowl concert broadcast live on Yahoo!: The night before the Super Bowl, Bud Light will host a special concert featuring 50 Cent, Lil Jon, and Pitbull that will be broadcast live only on omg! From Yahoo!. The concert can be seen on both omg! From Yahoo! and Yahoo! Screen, beginning at 10 pm EST on Saturday, February 4th.
Daily coverage: omg! From Yahoo! and Yahoo! Sports will feature daily coverage from the Bud Light Hotel, including “blue-carpet” celebrity interviews, celebrity predictions, an omg! photo gallery collection, and coverage of all the weekend’s parties..." for full article click here.
Also, IntoNow is featuring some amazing content before and during the game!
You'll be able to rate the commercials during the game AND a chance to win Pepsi MAX for life! Find out how here, but hurry, you need to download the app and be ready to go by the NFL Honors award show, which is being hosted by Alec Baldwin and will air on Saturday, February 4 at 9:00 PM EST on NBC.
What are you waiting for, it's almost game day!
Curious about who works in our global offices in Europe?....
Posted: 2nd of February, 2012Ever wonder what our employees in Europe are doing or why they love working for Yahoo! ? Check out some of the new videos they posted in their Our People section!
James Wildman, MD VP Sales, UK & IrelandRosni Mistry, Y! Financial AnalystWarren, Y! Editorial Manager
Steve, Y! Head of Media Buying, Direct Response
We've also got profiles of HR and other Marketing Yahoos so hurry over to our EMEA career sites and learn more about our global company!
James Wildman, MD VP Sales, UK & IrelandRosni Mistry, Y! Financial AnalystWarren, Y! Editorial Manager
Steve, Y! Head of Media Buying, Direct Response
We've also got profiles of HR and other Marketing Yahoos so hurry over to our EMEA career sites and learn more about our global company!
NATPE award honors Yahoo! for leadership in the Digital category!
Posted: 30th of January, 2012NATPE award honors Yahoo! for leadership in the Digital category.
Last night, Yahoo! was recognized at the NATPE 2012 conference in Miami, Florida with a Digital Luminary Award for our leadership in the Digital Category for the commitment and investment in the creation and distribution of online content. Yahoo!’s Jason Dimberg, Senior Director and Head of Video Programming, accepted the award on Yahoo!’s behalf at the award presentation.
NATPE||Content First is a global, nonprofit organization committed to serving as a catalyst for the content revolution, operating and managing the only U.S.-based global content marketplace. The Digital Luminary Awards are based on six categories and the awards honor the innovative people and companies who act as catalysts in the content revolution.
“Each year, digital media continues to redefine itself and mature in terms of content, brand integration and talent,” remarked NATPE||Content First CEO Rick Feldman. “NATPE is proud to recognize the 2012 Digital Luminary Awards honorees as they lead the charge in uniting the world of media in a truly exciting way.”Yahoo! wins for ability to deliver premium content experiences
Yahoo!’s win in this category comes from our ability to deliver premium content experiences across screens at scale. In particular for our longtime commitment to original video programming with nine out of the top 10 original video shows online and the most successful online show in history, Primetime in No Time, boasting over half a billion streams. Yahoo!’s original programming reaches more than 26 million unique visitors per month producing up to 30 original programs per month.
Most recently, Yahoo! announced a partnership with Tom Hanks/Gary Goetzman’s Playtone, along with Reliance Entertainment, to team up to launch “Electric City,” an original scripted animated sci-fi series that offers a tantalizing, yet startling look into the future of civilization. Yahoo! also recently announced the Yahoo! Comedy Channel and Yahoo! Women’s Slate and launched Blindsided on Yahoo! Sports.
Also at NATPE was a keynote featuring a conversation with Yahoo! executive VP of Americas Ross Levinsohn and News Corp. Chief Digital Officer Jonathan Miller. Additional Yahoo!’s represented Yahoo! on panels as well including Andrew Snyder, VP Content Solution Sales on Content, Context and Culture and Toby McKenna, Senior Director, Property Sales Development on A New Kind of Network.
Last night, Yahoo! was recognized at the NATPE 2012 conference in Miami, Florida with a Digital Luminary Award for our leadership in the Digital Category for the commitment and investment in the creation and distribution of online content. Yahoo!’s Jason Dimberg, Senior Director and Head of Video Programming, accepted the award on Yahoo!’s behalf at the award presentation.
NATPE||Content First is a global, nonprofit organization committed to serving as a catalyst for the content revolution, operating and managing the only U.S.-based global content marketplace. The Digital Luminary Awards are based on six categories and the awards honor the innovative people and companies who act as catalysts in the content revolution.
“Each year, digital media continues to redefine itself and mature in terms of content, brand integration and talent,” remarked NATPE||Content First CEO Rick Feldman. “NATPE is proud to recognize the 2012 Digital Luminary Awards honorees as they lead the charge in uniting the world of media in a truly exciting way.”Yahoo! wins for ability to deliver premium content experiences
Yahoo!’s win in this category comes from our ability to deliver premium content experiences across screens at scale. In particular for our longtime commitment to original video programming with nine out of the top 10 original video shows online and the most successful online show in history, Primetime in No Time, boasting over half a billion streams. Yahoo!’s original programming reaches more than 26 million unique visitors per month producing up to 30 original programs per month.
Most recently, Yahoo! announced a partnership with Tom Hanks/Gary Goetzman’s Playtone, along with Reliance Entertainment, to team up to launch “Electric City,” an original scripted animated sci-fi series that offers a tantalizing, yet startling look into the future of civilization. Yahoo! also recently announced the Yahoo! Comedy Channel and Yahoo! Women’s Slate and launched Blindsided on Yahoo! Sports.
Also at NATPE was a keynote featuring a conversation with Yahoo! executive VP of Americas Ross Levinsohn and News Corp. Chief Digital Officer Jonathan Miller. Additional Yahoo!’s represented Yahoo! on panels as well including Andrew Snyder, VP Content Solution Sales on Content, Context and Culture and Toby McKenna, Senior Director, Property Sales Development on A New Kind of Network.
Yahoo! Fantasy Sports Writers Snag Industry Awards
Posted: 30th of January, 2012The content team for Fantasy Sports scored several key awards in 2011.
In two weeks, the NFL’s pinnacle event, the Super Bowl, will take place in Indianapolis. With Yahoos gearing up for the big game, it’s the perfect time to recognize the key contributors who made this year’s fantasy season one of Yahoo!’s best.
Kicking off, our Fantasy Football product continued to set the industry standard in reliability, usability and overall membership. This year, it surpassed five million users, up roughly 10% from 2010.
Two-time Emmy nominated webcast, “Fantasy Football Live,” dispensed timely fantasy advice/information to tens of thousands of owners every NFL Sunday. Wrapping its sixth season, it’s the first and longest running live online fantasy program.
Awards All Around For Fantasy Content Team
2011 also marked several individual achievements for writers on the Fantasy content team.
Managing editor Brandon Funston, one of the true pioneers of the virtual sports industry, was inducted into the Fantasy Sports Hall of Fame.
Meanwhile, pigskin prognosticator Scott Pianowksi was named the industry’s most accurate Fantasy Football expert according to Fantasy Pros. Scott’s invaluable start-sit advice steered many Yahoo! players in the right direction each week.
Additionally, Andy Behrens, caretaker of our very popular Roto Arcade blog, was nominated by the Fantasy Sports Writers Association (FSWA) for Best Baseball Print Article. Andy’s stellar Fantasy advice also helped fight a very real problem: hunger. His first place finish in Fantasy Pros’ "Beat the Expert" competition raised $1,000 for the Greater Chicago Food Depository.
Brad Evans also earned accolades from the FSWA. For the second time in three years, he was nominated for Fantasy Football Writer of the Year, only the second person in industry history to be a finalist twice in the category. He was also nominated for College Sports Writer of the Year for the third consecutive season. Brad took home the trophy in the category the previous two years. If he wins this time around, he would become only the third person in industry history to take home honors, for any award, three years in a row.
Finally, on the hardwood, Roto Arcade blogger Justin Phan also earned a FSWA nomination. His for Basketball Writer of the Year.
Fabulous work, guys.
The 2011 All-Fantasy Squad
Of course, their success could not have been possible if not for the production of real-life players on the field. To honor the warriors of the virtual gridiron, here is the team’s All-Fantasy squad for 2011:
QB: Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay
RB: LeSean McCoy, Philadelphia
RB: Ray Rice, Baltimore
WR: Calvin Johnson, Detroit
WR: Jordy Nelson, Green Bay
WR: Wes Welker, New England
TE: Rob Gronkowski, New England
K: David Akers, San Francisco
DEF: Chicago Bears
MVP: Aaron Rodgers
Rookie of the Year: Cam Newton, Carolina
Predictions
Lastly, it’s only right to hear each of our intrepid forecasters’ predictions for Super Bowl XLVI. Their picks:
Brandon Funston: Patriots 30, 49ers 20
Brad Evans: Giants 31, Patriots 28
Andy Behrens: 49ers 24, Ravens 20
Scott Pianowski: Patriots 31, Giants 27
Enjoy the wings, Madonna and, of course, the hard-hitting action. And be sure to raise a pint for the greatest Fantasy team on the planet.
In two weeks, the NFL’s pinnacle event, the Super Bowl, will take place in Indianapolis. With Yahoos gearing up for the big game, it’s the perfect time to recognize the key contributors who made this year’s fantasy season one of Yahoo!’s best.
Kicking off, our Fantasy Football product continued to set the industry standard in reliability, usability and overall membership. This year, it surpassed five million users, up roughly 10% from 2010.
Two-time Emmy nominated webcast, “Fantasy Football Live,” dispensed timely fantasy advice/information to tens of thousands of owners every NFL Sunday. Wrapping its sixth season, it’s the first and longest running live online fantasy program.
Awards All Around For Fantasy Content Team
2011 also marked several individual achievements for writers on the Fantasy content team.
Managing editor Brandon Funston, one of the true pioneers of the virtual sports industry, was inducted into the Fantasy Sports Hall of Fame.
Meanwhile, pigskin prognosticator Scott Pianowksi was named the industry’s most accurate Fantasy Football expert according to Fantasy Pros. Scott’s invaluable start-sit advice steered many Yahoo! players in the right direction each week.
Additionally, Andy Behrens, caretaker of our very popular Roto Arcade blog, was nominated by the Fantasy Sports Writers Association (FSWA) for Best Baseball Print Article. Andy’s stellar Fantasy advice also helped fight a very real problem: hunger. His first place finish in Fantasy Pros’ "Beat the Expert" competition raised $1,000 for the Greater Chicago Food Depository.
Brad Evans also earned accolades from the FSWA. For the second time in three years, he was nominated for Fantasy Football Writer of the Year, only the second person in industry history to be a finalist twice in the category. He was also nominated for College Sports Writer of the Year for the third consecutive season. Brad took home the trophy in the category the previous two years. If he wins this time around, he would become only the third person in industry history to take home honors, for any award, three years in a row.
Finally, on the hardwood, Roto Arcade blogger Justin Phan also earned a FSWA nomination. His for Basketball Writer of the Year.
Fabulous work, guys.
The 2011 All-Fantasy Squad
Of course, their success could not have been possible if not for the production of real-life players on the field. To honor the warriors of the virtual gridiron, here is the team’s All-Fantasy squad for 2011:
QB: Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay
RB: LeSean McCoy, Philadelphia
RB: Ray Rice, Baltimore
WR: Calvin Johnson, Detroit
WR: Jordy Nelson, Green Bay
WR: Wes Welker, New England
TE: Rob Gronkowski, New England
K: David Akers, San Francisco
DEF: Chicago Bears
MVP: Aaron Rodgers
Rookie of the Year: Cam Newton, Carolina
Predictions
Lastly, it’s only right to hear each of our intrepid forecasters’ predictions for Super Bowl XLVI. Their picks:
Brandon Funston: Patriots 30, 49ers 20
Brad Evans: Giants 31, Patriots 28
Andy Behrens: 49ers 24, Ravens 20
Scott Pianowski: Patriots 31, Giants 27
Enjoy the wings, Madonna and, of course, the hard-hitting action. And be sure to raise a pint for the greatest Fantasy team on the planet.
Yahoo! Kicks Off 2012 Sundance Festival
Posted: 23rd of January, 2012Yahoo! is opening the doors to the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, giving independent film fans access to one of the year’s most highly anticipated industry events. Yahoo! is the Official Sponsor of the Short Film Program at this year’s Festival, which runs January 19 - 29 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Sundance, Utah.
The general public will have access to nine short films from this year’s Festival by visiting sundance.yahoo.com, powered by Yahoo! Screen. Festival fans everywhere will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite of those nine short films. Fans will also get behind-the-scenes access to film and entertainment news, celebrities in attendance, and the biggest stories of the festival through Yahoo! Movies and omg!.
“Our programming efforts at this anchor event span across the network,” says Ross Levinsohn, EVP Americas. “They include providing behind-the-scenes access to the Sundance Festival on the Yahoo! Movies Sundance Blog, the latest celebrity news on omg!, and red carpet interviews on omg! NOW, our #1 rated celebrity news and entertainment video series. Our unique Festival film-related content and on-the-ground reporting, builds out Yahoo! as the online destination for the Festival.”
Yahoo! Screen is hosting short films premiering at Sundance
Beginning today and lasting through January 27, Yahoo! Screen will host a selection of short films premiering at the Sundance Film Festival and chosen in close collaboration with the Festival and Yahoo! Movie editors. Film aficionados will have the chance to vote for their favorite, and on Saturday, January 28, at the Festival’s Official Awards Ceremony—Yahoo! will present the winning filmmaker with the inaugural Yahoo! Audience Award and $5000. Plus, the winning film will be given prominent placement on Yahoo!. All of the additional featured films will remain accessible on Yahoo! Screen for six additional weeks.
Throughout this celebration of independent cinema, Yahoo! Movies is providing exclusive film-related content and original news daily from our on-the-ground correspondents in Park City. omg! NOW host Kristen Aldridge will take her audience past the velvet ropes, providing insider access from Main Street to the hottest parties and biggest premieres.
The following short films are among those available now on Yahoo! Screen. So check out the site, watch the shorts, and vote for your favorite:
Visit Yahoo! Screen and vote for your favorite short!
The general public will have access to nine short films from this year’s Festival by visiting sundance.yahoo.com, powered by Yahoo! Screen. Festival fans everywhere will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite of those nine short films. Fans will also get behind-the-scenes access to film and entertainment news, celebrities in attendance, and the biggest stories of the festival through Yahoo! Movies and omg!.
“Our programming efforts at this anchor event span across the network,” says Ross Levinsohn, EVP Americas. “They include providing behind-the-scenes access to the Sundance Festival on the Yahoo! Movies Sundance Blog, the latest celebrity news on omg!, and red carpet interviews on omg! NOW, our #1 rated celebrity news and entertainment video series. Our unique Festival film-related content and on-the-ground reporting, builds out Yahoo! as the online destination for the Festival.”
Yahoo! Screen is hosting short films premiering at Sundance
Beginning today and lasting through January 27, Yahoo! Screen will host a selection of short films premiering at the Sundance Film Festival and chosen in close collaboration with the Festival and Yahoo! Movie editors. Film aficionados will have the chance to vote for their favorite, and on Saturday, January 28, at the Festival’s Official Awards Ceremony—Yahoo! will present the winning filmmaker with the inaugural Yahoo! Audience Award and $5000. Plus, the winning film will be given prominent placement on Yahoo!. All of the additional featured films will remain accessible on Yahoo! Screen for six additional weeks.
Throughout this celebration of independent cinema, Yahoo! Movies is providing exclusive film-related content and original news daily from our on-the-ground correspondents in Park City. omg! NOW host Kristen Aldridge will take her audience past the velvet ropes, providing insider access from Main Street to the hottest parties and biggest premieres.
The following short films are among those available now on Yahoo! Screen. So check out the site, watch the shorts, and vote for your favorite:
- ’92 Skybox Alonzo Mourning Rookie Card: Jim and Dave, two brothers who don't like each other very much, are forced to come together when their dad dies in Kansas City. Dave is pretty sure he has an Alonzo Mourning Skybox Series rookie card, but Jim has other ideas.
- Aquadettes: A meditation on life, death, and synchronized swimming.
- The Arm: To keep up with social pressure in a technologically advanced world, Chance starts a texting relationship with Genevieve—a girl he meets at a yogurt shop. But tragedy forces Chance to realize that he was never in a relationship at all.
- Debutante Hunters: In the low country of South Carolina, some true southern belles reveal their more rugged side, providing a glimpse into what drives them to hunt in the wild.
- Dol (First Birthday): A gay Korean American man yearns for a family life that is just out of reach.
- Henley: Meet nine-year-old Ted Henley, budding motel manager and roadkill entrepreneur.
- Long Distance Information: Father always told us, “Never talk to strangers,” . . . But surely we have to phone home sometimes?
- Odysseus’ Gambit: During his lifetime, each man plays cosmic chess against the devil.
- Una Hora por Favora: A woman hires a day laborer for an hour and gets more than she bargained for.
Visit Yahoo! Screen and vote for your favorite short!
The Yahoo! Logo Gets a Lunar New Year Makeover
Posted: 23rd of January, 2012Exploring the Yahoo! homepage just got a lot more fun. To kick off the new year, the Brand Marketing team is rolling out a series of Y! Bang animations that will appear on the homepage, periodically replacing Yahoo!’s familiar purple logo. Along with reflecting the lively energy of the brand, the animations will be timed to celebrate notable occasions and raise awareness for meaningful causes.
“Among other things, the Yahoo! brand is fun, and these animations are a representation of that,” says Connor Smith, Brand Marketing Associate in the Global Brand Marketing team.
Connor and the Brand team plan to develop close to 40 animated designs for 2012. The current animation is for Chinese New Year. In this animation a rabbit hops into the scene, pauses, and then bolts out as a dragon walks in.
“The animation is a tongue and cheek reference to the Chinese zodiac- 2011 is the year of the rabbit, and 2012 is the year of the dragon” explains Connor.
Clicking on the animation will bring you to a relevant Yahoo! page, providing a deeper user experience, whether it be more fun or more facts. The Chinese New Year animation will link to a page on Chinese astrology within Shine’s horoscope section. Some of the more cause-related animations, such as the breast-cancer awareness and World Aids Day designs, will provide additional Yahoo!-generated information on the issues.
Click here to view the Chinese New Year logo which appear on Yahoo! from midnight to midnight on January 23rd. Stay tuned for the next animation – this time for the Superbowl -- on the Yahoo! homepage.
“Among other things, the Yahoo! brand is fun, and these animations are a representation of that,” says Connor Smith, Brand Marketing Associate in the Global Brand Marketing team.
Connor and the Brand team plan to develop close to 40 animated designs for 2012. The current animation is for Chinese New Year. In this animation a rabbit hops into the scene, pauses, and then bolts out as a dragon walks in.
“The animation is a tongue and cheek reference to the Chinese zodiac- 2011 is the year of the rabbit, and 2012 is the year of the dragon” explains Connor.
Clicking on the animation will bring you to a relevant Yahoo! page, providing a deeper user experience, whether it be more fun or more facts. The Chinese New Year animation will link to a page on Chinese astrology within Shine’s horoscope section. Some of the more cause-related animations, such as the breast-cancer awareness and World Aids Day designs, will provide additional Yahoo!-generated information on the issues.
Click here to view the Chinese New Year logo which appear on Yahoo! from midnight to midnight on January 23rd. Stay tuned for the next animation – this time for the Superbowl -- on the Yahoo! homepage.
Yahoo! hosts Breakthrough Leadership Lessons from Top Women Execs
Posted: 23rd of January, 2012by Jessica Roland
On January 10, Yahoo! 's Employee Engagement and Diversity team hosted a wonderful 2-hour panel session on Breakthrough Leadership Lessons from Top Women Execs. For meeting space reasons, attendance was limited to directors and up across all Yahoo! groups, and it was a full house, with quite a few of our male colleagues as well. The content was so relevant to our WIT discussions, we wanted to share with all of you right away.
The session was kicked off by Tim Parsey, Yahoo!'s SVP of Design, who told an excellent story about his "aha" career moment of seeing what a high-powered female executive can accomplish when given the reins. Tim handed off to panel moderator Rayona Sharpnack, CEO & Founder of the Institute for Women’s Leadership, for introductions of the 6 panelists:
Before the panel questions started, each panelist gave some of her personal background and lessons learned. Amity talked about her experiences as the first woman partner in PWC's Swiss M&A organization. They'd never had to deal with moms at work, so she had to write the division’s maternity policy! Anita's story was around being promoted to a VP role very early in her career, and having to consciously alter her approach so that her youth and introversion would not be a handicap. The key anecdote from Cisco's Kathy Hill focused on having the confidence to seek executive roles in the face of skepticism, and also not being afraid to make an industry jump in order to start over. Michelle talked about how she was with Microsoft for 10 years, but in that time, she took on 10 different projects. Each time she successfully finished a project, she was given the choice to stay and maintain it, or move on to a new project, and she always chose the latter. Penny, originally from England, talked about being a CEO with 2 young kids and later, with health problems. As you will see below, she had some strong views on work-life balance! Finally, Telle Whitney, CEO of the Anita Borg Institute (ABI runs the acclaimed annual Grace Hopper Celebration) recounted her story, where the influence of mentors was key in getting her into C.S. and then into ABI (she was recruited and mentored by the legendary Grace Hopper).
The panel discussion kicked off with the topic of "executive presence" and how that term is often mentioned as something women need to develop before they can move up. In Amity's opinion, the keys are: 1) Articulate your goals and objectives. 2) Take on challenging projects. 3) See differences in people as opportunities to leverage. Differences distinguish you from the crowd, she said…"people will remember you " and respect that you were able to get a seat at the table. Kathy emphasized that in order to stay at the table, you need to be prepared with smart questions every time there is an opportunity for you to participate.
The next topic was leadership across organizational boundaries. Anita talked about how in her early career, she learned results are not enough..you have to also be known. She went on a campaign to connect with people, and used her introversion as a strength, focusing on her ability to connect 1:1 with people, rather than forcing herself to extrovert and connect with groups.
People do have very different strengths, and the panelists discussed situations where their personal style was different than their team's. Kathy recounted the challenges of having to, as an extrovert, connect with lots of introverted engineering leaders. Penny pointed out that "diversity of style is powerful"- it takes confidence to run a team that's very different. It's a mistake to only make hires you feel comfortable with. Rayona closed out that question with a comment on how important it is to be authentic in your communications.
Penny was up next for the inevitable work-life balance question, and she firmly asserted that "balance is a myth" if you are going for a high-level position "in this competitive world". Anita's advice included "Find something to look forward to at least one time per week; have your priorities established. " She still seemed to see hope for balance; as did Michelle, who puts health first, and who learned to schedule time during the weekend and quarterly mini-breaks to make herself unwind. Both Penny and Anita advised that having day-to-day logistics support from your significant other can make going for an executive position easier. Rayona reinforced the importance of actually scheduling down-time…or else it doesn’t happen. Kathy's long-term perspective was comforting: " A career is a long road, and there are stages; things will change."
The panel talked about the differences between mentors and sponsors; the latter actively "push, protect, promote" and the former give advice. Telle's view over the years has evolved to: "Mentoring is a spectrum"; there are peer mentoring groups and topic mentors too. "Mentoring comes in many shapes and sizes; find your fit". But go out and get some! Penny added that we should not be afraid to be mentors ourselves.
The last moderator question was on "What qualities are needed for women to succeed as execs?" Telle recounted that she hears often from the GHC participants "I just want to be recognized for what I do". But hard work is not enough. Telle recommends reading "Ask For It" to learn to ask for what you want. Asking is a significant difference between men and women. She told a story about learning she was making less than her male counterparts; when she asked, she was told "it was because you didn't ask for it." She feels a second necessary quality is to be able to communicate effectively about your technical work. Rayona confirmed that it's a cultural norm for women to talk about what we want to do, rather than our accomplishments. Kathy did a "do-over" of her previous introduction, to model highlighting accomplishments instead of what she does for her work. She followed by saying that It's true that as women we hesitate to mention numbers, but we need to be prepared to do this. Penny recommended reading "You Just Don't Understand", which points out that girls communicate to create connection, while boys communicate to create status and distinguish themselves from others. We have to learn to speak the latter language too.
In answering the audience questions at the end of the session, the panel gave a long-term perspective on the prospects of women for technical and executive roles. The next generation will be more global, and more oriented to doing what they love and taking the road less traveled. There may still be unconscious bias in today's "man's world", but it's not a conspiracy. Women will have succeeded when men are supporters of women's careers as much as women, and if we get all the supportive men we know to go out and recruit others, we will change the status quo. It is key to help younger women get into technology. Only 22% of CS grads are women now, but the payoffs from being in technical careers are big: female Science-Technology-Engineering-Math (STEM) grads earn 30% more than average (interestingly, all the panelists had a strong math background). The panelists exhorted participants to be brave and go for their full potential - "Jump and invent water on the way down". All the panelists were clearly women who had done just that, and the payoff was big.
Original post from the Women in Tech Blog here.
On January 10, Yahoo! 's Employee Engagement and Diversity team hosted a wonderful 2-hour panel session on Breakthrough Leadership Lessons from Top Women Execs. For meeting space reasons, attendance was limited to directors and up across all Yahoo! groups, and it was a full house, with quite a few of our male colleagues as well. The content was so relevant to our WIT discussions, we wanted to share with all of you right away.
The session was kicked off by Tim Parsey, Yahoo!'s SVP of Design, who told an excellent story about his "aha" career moment of seeing what a high-powered female executive can accomplish when given the reins. Tim handed off to panel moderator Rayona Sharpnack, CEO & Founder of the Institute for Women’s Leadership, for introductions of the 6 panelists:
- Telle Whitney, CEO of the Anita Borg Institute for Women in Computing
- Michelle Fisher, CEO of Blaze Mobile
- Amity Millhiser, Managing Partner, PriceWaterhouseCoopers
- Kathy Hill, SVP Development Strategy and Operations, Cisco
- Penny Herscher, CEO of FirstRain Inc.
- Anita Richards, Executive Coach at Intrinsic Decisions Coaching and former SVP at Providian Financial.
Before the panel questions started, each panelist gave some of her personal background and lessons learned. Amity talked about her experiences as the first woman partner in PWC's Swiss M&A organization. They'd never had to deal with moms at work, so she had to write the division’s maternity policy! Anita's story was around being promoted to a VP role very early in her career, and having to consciously alter her approach so that her youth and introversion would not be a handicap. The key anecdote from Cisco's Kathy Hill focused on having the confidence to seek executive roles in the face of skepticism, and also not being afraid to make an industry jump in order to start over. Michelle talked about how she was with Microsoft for 10 years, but in that time, she took on 10 different projects. Each time she successfully finished a project, she was given the choice to stay and maintain it, or move on to a new project, and she always chose the latter. Penny, originally from England, talked about being a CEO with 2 young kids and later, with health problems. As you will see below, she had some strong views on work-life balance! Finally, Telle Whitney, CEO of the Anita Borg Institute (ABI runs the acclaimed annual Grace Hopper Celebration) recounted her story, where the influence of mentors was key in getting her into C.S. and then into ABI (she was recruited and mentored by the legendary Grace Hopper).
The panel discussion kicked off with the topic of "executive presence" and how that term is often mentioned as something women need to develop before they can move up. In Amity's opinion, the keys are: 1) Articulate your goals and objectives. 2) Take on challenging projects. 3) See differences in people as opportunities to leverage. Differences distinguish you from the crowd, she said…"people will remember you " and respect that you were able to get a seat at the table. Kathy emphasized that in order to stay at the table, you need to be prepared with smart questions every time there is an opportunity for you to participate.
The next topic was leadership across organizational boundaries. Anita talked about how in her early career, she learned results are not enough..you have to also be known. She went on a campaign to connect with people, and used her introversion as a strength, focusing on her ability to connect 1:1 with people, rather than forcing herself to extrovert and connect with groups.
People do have very different strengths, and the panelists discussed situations where their personal style was different than their team's. Kathy recounted the challenges of having to, as an extrovert, connect with lots of introverted engineering leaders. Penny pointed out that "diversity of style is powerful"- it takes confidence to run a team that's very different. It's a mistake to only make hires you feel comfortable with. Rayona closed out that question with a comment on how important it is to be authentic in your communications.
Penny was up next for the inevitable work-life balance question, and she firmly asserted that "balance is a myth" if you are going for a high-level position "in this competitive world". Anita's advice included "Find something to look forward to at least one time per week; have your priorities established. " She still seemed to see hope for balance; as did Michelle, who puts health first, and who learned to schedule time during the weekend and quarterly mini-breaks to make herself unwind. Both Penny and Anita advised that having day-to-day logistics support from your significant other can make going for an executive position easier. Rayona reinforced the importance of actually scheduling down-time…or else it doesn’t happen. Kathy's long-term perspective was comforting: " A career is a long road, and there are stages; things will change."
The panel talked about the differences between mentors and sponsors; the latter actively "push, protect, promote" and the former give advice. Telle's view over the years has evolved to: "Mentoring is a spectrum"; there are peer mentoring groups and topic mentors too. "Mentoring comes in many shapes and sizes; find your fit". But go out and get some! Penny added that we should not be afraid to be mentors ourselves.
The last moderator question was on "What qualities are needed for women to succeed as execs?" Telle recounted that she hears often from the GHC participants "I just want to be recognized for what I do". But hard work is not enough. Telle recommends reading "Ask For It" to learn to ask for what you want. Asking is a significant difference between men and women. She told a story about learning she was making less than her male counterparts; when she asked, she was told "it was because you didn't ask for it." She feels a second necessary quality is to be able to communicate effectively about your technical work. Rayona confirmed that it's a cultural norm for women to talk about what we want to do, rather than our accomplishments. Kathy did a "do-over" of her previous introduction, to model highlighting accomplishments instead of what she does for her work. She followed by saying that It's true that as women we hesitate to mention numbers, but we need to be prepared to do this. Penny recommended reading "You Just Don't Understand", which points out that girls communicate to create connection, while boys communicate to create status and distinguish themselves from others. We have to learn to speak the latter language too.
In answering the audience questions at the end of the session, the panel gave a long-term perspective on the prospects of women for technical and executive roles. The next generation will be more global, and more oriented to doing what they love and taking the road less traveled. There may still be unconscious bias in today's "man's world", but it's not a conspiracy. Women will have succeeded when men are supporters of women's careers as much as women, and if we get all the supportive men we know to go out and recruit others, we will change the status quo. It is key to help younger women get into technology. Only 22% of CS grads are women now, but the payoffs from being in technical careers are big: female Science-Technology-Engineering-Math (STEM) grads earn 30% more than average (interestingly, all the panelists had a strong math background). The panelists exhorted participants to be brave and go for their full potential - "Jump and invent water on the way down". All the panelists were clearly women who had done just that, and the payoff was big.
Original post from the Women in Tech Blog here.
Yahoo! Hosts “Change Your World! Cairo" 2012 Summit
Posted: 24th of January, 2012Spotlight on women’s use of technology and the Internet to create positive change.
The Yahoo! Business & Human Rights Program, along with Yahoo! Maktoob, and in partnership with Vital Voices, is hosting a summit on January 18 at the Fairmont Nile City. Change Your World! Cairo 2012 will spotlight how women across the Middle East and North Africa are using technology, the Internet, and various social and digital media platforms to create positive change in the world.
Moderated by award-winning journalist and human rights activist Mona Eltahawy, the summit will focus on four primary areas: women's leadership in governance and politics, women's rights/human rights and social justice, journalism, and entrepreneurship.
Confirmed participants include:
"Women across the Middle East and North Africa are using the Internet, technology and social media to learn, lead, inspire, connect, and change the world. We are hosting this summit to shine light on extraordinary women, facilitate an ongoing exchange of ideas, and identify areas where companies can use their technology and platforms to amplify women’s voices,” said Ebele Okobi, director of Yahoo!’s Business & Human Rights Program.
Follow the event on #changeyourworldcairo and @YahooBHRP.
The Yahoo! Business & Human Rights Program, along with Yahoo! Maktoob, and in partnership with Vital Voices, is hosting a summit on January 18 at the Fairmont Nile City. Change Your World! Cairo 2012 will spotlight how women across the Middle East and North Africa are using technology, the Internet, and various social and digital media platforms to create positive change in the world.
Moderated by award-winning journalist and human rights activist Mona Eltahawy, the summit will focus on four primary areas: women's leadership in governance and politics, women's rights/human rights and social justice, journalism, and entrepreneurship.
Confirmed participants include:
- Maria Al Masani, social media pioneer and founder of Yemen Rights Monitor;
- Fida Ouri, deputy director of NISAA FM in the West Bank, one of the first all-women, non-political radio stations in the Arab world;
- Shereen Allam, Egyptian entrepreneur, co-owner of Eco-tek and founder, Association for Women's Total Advancement and Development;
- Lara Ayoub, Jordanian digital media pioneer and digital media director, Al Ghad and Al-Waseet
- Dalia Ziada, Egyptian women’s rights activist and blogger who has been hailed by the international media as one of the most influential women in the world;
- Lamees Dhaif, Bahraini journalist and human rights activist.
"Women across the Middle East and North Africa are using the Internet, technology and social media to learn, lead, inspire, connect, and change the world. We are hosting this summit to shine light on extraordinary women, facilitate an ongoing exchange of ideas, and identify areas where companies can use their technology and platforms to amplify women’s voices,” said Ebele Okobi, director of Yahoo!’s Business & Human Rights Program.
Follow the event on #changeyourworldcairo and @YahooBHRP.
A salute to Yahoo!'s iconic co-founder
Posted: 9th of February, 2012What's a Chief Yahoo? It's a guy who dreams, inspires, and rolls up his sleeves while working side-by-side with teams in the trenches. We're talking of course about Jerry Yang, Yahoo!'s co-founder.
Before the wired world was neatly organized and so readily accessible, we actually had to browse page after page of Boolean look-ups to find stuff. But Jerry Yang and David Filo changed all that. The year was 1994, and in a trailer at Stanford, these two guys began creating a guide that eventually became a directory of sites dubbed "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle," or Yahoo!. Yahoo! is now a brand known around the globe, and the world's premier digital media company, but only because of the vision and hard work of its two founders.
A few days ago it was announced that Jerry has decided to move on from Yahoo!, leaving it in the capable hands of our new CEO Scott Thompson, Jerry's old pal "Filo," and the 13,000 + Yahoo! employees worldwide.
Jerry, whatever trailer you choose to take your talents to next, we know you'll rock the world with your vision. This yodel's for you.
-- All of Us at Yahoo!
Reposted from Yahoo! Advertising Blog.
