Advertising and marketing

Updated 2:43 p.m. PST with precise layoff total.

Updated at 7:23 p.m. PST with comments from Yahoo employees.

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--Yahoo began issuing pink slips Wednesday to the majority of the employees affected by its previously announced 10 percent job cut, the company confirmed.

Most of the 1,520 layoffs affect employees at Yahoo's U.S.-based locations and come from a number of areas within the company, the company said.

"There was an across-the-board review (for potential cuts) and no one area received a pass," said Brad Williams, a Yahoo spokesman, who … Read more

Update at 7:29 p.m. PDT with closing stock price

Major Yahoo investor Ivory Investment Management on Wednesday called on Yahoo's board to restart talks with Microsoft and offered up a search buyout proposal that it claims could yield investors a value of $24 to $29 per share.

Ivory, which holds a 1.5 percent stake in Yahoo, is proposing Yahoo sell its search business to Microsoft for an upfront payment of approximately $15 billion, in which Microsoft then becomes the search provider for all of Yahoo's properties and its existing affiliates.

Microsoft would own and operate … Read more

As part of an effort to wring more money out of its online activities, Google has begun permitting text advertisements for some hard liquor in the United States.

"This fall, we changed our policy around beer, for the first time allowing advertisements of its sale in the U.S. via AdWords. And starting today, in response to advertiser feedback we've received over the years, we'll permit the advertisement of hard alcohol and liqueurs that target the U.S.," said Amanda Kelly of Google's AdWords team in a blog post Monday.

Google started permitting ads for beer, wine, and champagne … Read more

Roost, a San Francisco-based real estate search site, has secured $8 million in funding, bucking the slowdown trend in the property market and economy overall, the company announced on Tuesday.

Shasta Ventures led the round, which also included General Catalyst Partners, The Cross Country Group LLC and Geolo Capital, who had previously provided $5.5 million.

"In this tumultuous time, many Americans are looking for an investment alternative to the stock market," Jason Pressman, managing director at Shasta Ventures who will join Roost's board of directors, said in a statement. Roost is able to provide the most … Read more

Yahoo's search for a new CEO is narrowing, with former Vodafone Group chief Arun Sarin reportedly on the list, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Yahoo has authorized reference checks for a few candidates in order to narrow the field even further so the informal search committee can make a recommendation to the board of directors, according to the report.

And while the CEO selection process has moved at a rapid clip since co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang announced in mid-November he would step down as soon as a replacement is found, the process could very … Read more

The iPhone and T-Mobile G1 come with pretty much full-fledged Web browsers, and Google now is according them that status by showing search ads on the phones.

Advertisers bidding for search ads through Google's AdWords service now can choose to have ad campaigns run exclusively on iPhones and the T-Mobile G1, the first phone with Google's Android operating system, which also has a robust browser. Alexandra Kenin, product marketing manager for Google's mobile ads team, announced the move on the company's Google Mobile Blog Monday.

By using the "iPhones and other mobile devices with full … Read more

Yahoo's BOSS (Build Your Own Search Service), which lets others use the company's search technology, is getting some traction.

The service, announced in July, now handles 10 million queries per day, Yahoo announced Monday. And with Google still king of the heap, and Microsoft breathing down Yahoo's neck, the company needs every scrap of influence it can get in the search market.

"We believe growing to more than 100 queries a second in just over 5 months says something about the demand for an open search platform," Bill Michels of the BOSS Team said in … Read more

Christmas is coming and so are the pink slips.

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang noted in his post-quarterly earnings e-mail to employees in late October that employees affected by the 10 percent job cut would be "notified of layoffs in the next several weeks" -- that is, before Thanksgiving.

Apparently it took a little longer to wade through the approximately 1,430 positions.

A report in Dow Jones' AllThingsD site notes that the pink slips are expected Wednesday morning and will be across the board.

And while Yang, in the most recent earnings report call, noted that further layoffs … Read more

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Friday said a search deal with Yahoo would be better if done sooner than later, but noted it wasn't a factor in the hiring of former Yahoo search executive Qi Lu, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Microsoft announced Thursday that it had hired Lu as president of its online services business. Lu was formerly the vice president of Yahoo's e-commerce and search business. Microsoft has repeatedly expressed interest in acquiring the latter.

In responding to the Journal's question on whether Lu's hiring will make any potential integration … Read more