Hello everyone,

Some may have noticed the past few weeks that SHU has become a little bit unstable.  This is due to the popularity of the site growing by leaps and bounds which in turn is consuming all the available memory on the server.   We are looking into adding more RAM in the next few days to improve performance and stabilize the system.

'efi426hemi' pid='10264' datel Wrote:

Hello everyone,

Some may have noticed the past few weeks that SHU has become a little bit unstable.  This is due to the popularity of the site growing by leaps and bounds which in turn is consuming all the available memory on the server.   We are looking into adding more RAM in the next few days to improve performance and stabilize the system.

Stay tuned for further updates,

Hemi

Anti-Sway Bars and heavier shocks and struts would probably help...... ;-)

'Dmarque' pid='10267' datel Wrote:

'efi426hemi' pid='10264' datel Wrote:

Hello everyone,

Some may have noticed the past few weeks that SHU has become a little bit unstable.  This is due to the popularity of the site growing by leaps and bounds which in turn is consuming all the available memory on the server.   We are looking into adding more RAM in the next few days to improve performance and stabilize the system.

Stay tuned for further updates,

Hemi

Anti-Sway Bars and heavier shocks and struts would probably help...... ;-)

Way to much fun you folks.

Cheers

Tusker

Palm dateline='<a href="tel:1348676606">1348676606</a>' Wrote: Thanks Hefi! Nice to have site administrators who stay on top of things. Yazoo has gotten so bad with its ads and quality that I have quit using it except for email; and that may change soon too. Yazoo will end up not being around before much longer IMHO. They will get bought out, and should be. The management of that company is among the worst out there. The MB format is the worst I've seen. Life is MUCH simpler not dealing with it any more. Thanks to you and STP for SHU!

Re: Yahoo:

Maybe so Pards.  But consider this.  It was no less than Steve Jobs during his final presentation on the iPad that said, "Yahoo, remains the best email platform on the internet".   Is it no wonder that the ONLY non-Apple program that remains on an Apple Mac is Yahoo?  I would also pose this question.  Why has Yahoo gone to the trouble to shed itself of AliBaba China?  Some speculate that it is a necessary preliminary  step to enable Apple to merge Yahoo into it's fold and further block Google who they are ( did we forget ) "willing to enter thermonuclear war to eventually destroy".   [Deathbed Statement by Jobs!].  So, to criticize Yahoo for being  a buyout candidate just might be foolish.  After all, if Yahoo is bought out by Apple was Yahoo really all that foolish?  We don't know until this game of musical chairs is completed but for my part......I'd suggest making sure that you are seated in the right chair when the music stops.  Just might be a pretty valuable chair!!  Most consider Yahoo the ugly duckling right now......but just wait.  There might be a beautiful swan swimming in that pond my friends!!

'Dmarque' pid='10337' dateline='<a href="tel:1348698 Wrote:

'Palm' pid='10311' dateline='<a href="tel:1348676 Wrote:Thanks Hefi! Nice to have site administrators who stay on top of things. Yazoo has gotten so bad with its ads and quality that I have quit using it except for email; and that may change soon too. Yazoo will end up not being around before much longer IMHO. They will get bought out, and should be. The management of that company is among the worst out there. The MB format is the worst I've seen. Life is MUCH simpler not dealing with it any more. Thanks to you and STP for SHU!

Re: Yahoo:

Maybe so Pards.  But consider this.  It was no less than Steve Jobs during his final presentation on the iPad that said, "Yahoo, remains the best email platform on the internet".   Is it no wonder that the ONLY non-Apple program that remains on an Apple Mac is Yahoo?  I would also pose this question.  Why has Yahoo gone to the trouble to shed itself of AliBaba China?  Some speculate that it is a necessary preliminary  step to enable Apple to merge Yahoo into it's fold and further block Google who they are ( did we forget ) "willing to enter thermonuclear war to eventually destroy".   [Deathbed Statement by Jobs!].  So, to criticize Yahoo for being  a buyout candidate just might be foolish.  After all, if Yahoo is bought out by Apple was Yahoo really all that foolish?  We don't know until this game of musical chairs is completed but for my part......I'd suggest making sure that you are seated in the right chair when the music stops.  Just might be a pretty valuable chair!!  Most consider Yahoo the ugly duckling right now......but just wait.  There might be a beautiful swan swimming in that pond my friends!!

Yahoo lacks a real identity. It can't make up its mind on what kind of company it is or wants to be because it has a very splintered BOD. It chews through CEOs like a termite through wood. It couldn't develop and maintain its own search engine and its new CEO is up against a mountain of doubt that she can turn around a company that lacks focus. A tech company like this hasn't got years that are needed to be turned around. While it is being "reinvented" it will fall far behind companies that are nimble and well run. Jobs' comment was in regard to an email platform. Since then that platform has become clunky and due to poor overall technology it was recently hit and many passwords were stolen. They now have frustrating steps involved in using their Forward and Reply features; if you try and do many of these types of emails in a short period you must go to the Outbox and enter a code for it to go. It would be interesting to hear what Jobs thinks of today's Yahoo. Here is a recent good article on the challenges the newest CEO has on her hands. Odds against Yahoo surviving. I think today Jobs might use his famous words for Yahoo that he used when something had some promise but needed a lot of work: "It's shit".

"Mayer can’t save Yahoo – because Yahoo can’t be saved

'Palm' pid='10354' dateline='<a href="tel:1348719 Wrote:

'Dmarque' pid='10337' dateline='<a href="tel:1348698 Wrote:

'Palm' pid='10311' dateline='<a href="tel:1348676 Wrote:Thanks Hefi! Nice to have site administrators who stay on top of things. Yazoo has gotten so bad with its ads and quality that I have quit using it except for email; and that may change soon too. Yazoo will end up not being around before much longer IMHO. They will get bought out, and should be. The management of that company is among the worst out there. The MB format is the worst I've seen. Life is MUCH simpler not dealing with it any more. Thanks to you and STP for SHU!

Re: Yahoo:

Maybe so Pards.  But consider this.  It was no less than Steve Jobs during his final presentation on the iPad that said, "Yahoo, remains the best email platform on the internet".   Is it no wonder that the ONLY non-Apple program that remains on an Apple Mac is Yahoo?  I would also pose this question.  Why has Yahoo gone to the trouble to shed itself of AliBaba China?  Some speculate that it is a necessary preliminary  step to enable Apple to merge Yahoo into it's fold and further block Google who they are ( did we forget ) "willing to enter thermonuclear war to eventually destroy".   [Deathbed Statement by Jobs!].  So, to criticize Yahoo for being  a buyout candidate just might be foolish.  After all, if Yahoo is bought out by Apple was Yahoo really all that foolish?  We don't know until this game of musical chairs is completed but for my part......I'd suggest making sure that you are seated in the right chair when the music stops.  Just might be a pretty valuable chair!!  Most consider Yahoo the ugly duckling right now......but just wait.  There might be a beautiful swan swimming in that pond my friends!!

Yahoo lacks a real identity. It can't make up its mind on what kind of company it is or wants to be because it has a very splintered BOD. It chews through CEOs like a termite through wood. It couldn't develop and maintain its own search engine and its new CEO is up against a mountain of doubt that she can turn around a company that lacks focus. A tech company like this hasn't got years that are needed to be turned around. While it is being "reinvented" it will fall far behind companies that are nimble and well run. Jobs' comment was in regard to an email platform. Since then that platform has become clunky and due to poor overall technology it was recently hit and many passwords were stolen. They now have frustrating steps involved in using their Forward and Reply features; if you try and do many of these types of emails in a short period you must go to the Outbox and enter a code for it to go. It would be interesting to hear what Jobs thinks of today's Yahoo. Here is a recent good article on the challenges the newest CEO has on her hands. Odds against Yahoo surviving. I think today Jobs might use his famous words for Yahoo that he used when something had some promise but needed a lot of work: "It's shit".

"Mayer can’t save Yahoo – because Yahoo can’t be saved

By Kevin Kelleher JULY 18, 2012

Yahoo eats CEOs. The perennially ailing company lures talented managers into the corner suite of its Silicon Valley headquarters, then it sucks their good reputations out of their veins and casts them aside. They inevitably pass through the revolving door an empty shell of their former selves.

Terry Semel, Jerry Yang, Carol Bartz, Scott Thompson. All took the CEO helm with visions of invigorating Yahoo into an Internet leader for the 21st century. Most became mired in Yahoo’s stubbornly byzantine culture. And all probably collected their severance checks wishing to themselves they’d never heard of the company with its stupid hillbilly name and its superfluous punctuation mark.*

Now it’s Marissa Mayer’s turn. Mayer – an early Google hire who instrumentally forged its successes in search, maps and online email – has become such a positive, likable presence in Silicon Valley that I actually felt sorry for her when I heard it was her time to be Yahoo’s help. A failed tenure as Yahoo’s CEO couldn’t happen to a better-qualified candidate.

Mayer’s appointment was something of a bombshell – many people expected Yahoo would appoint Ross Levinsohn, a seasoned ex-News Corp executive, as CEO. In the Internet industry of 2012, the gambit boils down to advertising versus engineering – which is to say, vision versus monetization. Any good Web company wants the sweet spot that welcomes both. With Levinsohn, Yahoo would have got an ad guy to oversee a product that is largely computer code. With Mayer, Yahoo gets an engineer with executive experience.

Three years ago, Mayer signaled that she was ready for a new company. Mayer, famously, was responsible early on for the invitingly spartan homepage of Google.com. Later she had a hand in core features like Gmail, Google News and Image Search. During her five years as vice-president for Google’s search and user experience, she oversaw some of the company’s biggest projects, balancing the site’s intuitive interface with the need to generate more ad revenue from it.

In recent years, her trajectory seemed to lose energy. Nearly two years ago, Mayer made a move seen by some as a demotion. She was sidelined from search into local initiatives. At the time, local was key to Google’s push into the mobile web, but it also became an area where Google lost ground to Facebook, Groupon, Yelp and others.

Remember Google Local? How about Hotpot? Did you love location-based features like Latitude? No? Maybe it’s because nobody else did. Under Mayer’s hand, Google never cracked the local web. Last year, CEO Larry Page pushed hard into social media with Google+, an initiative that seemed to sideline local. And now Google Maps is losing its default place on new iPhones.

A year ago, Mayer was bypassed when Jeff Huber was named senior vice-president for local business, previously Mayer’s turf. Again, observers wondered why Mayer wasn’t chosen. Despite being a public face of the company, Mayer wasn’t counted among the company’s top executives on the company’s corporate page, even before her departure was announced.

One can read into this recent history that Mayer lacks the chops to be a CEO, that she’s just bolting to maintain her reputation. Or one could look at her 13 years at Google and see she’s exactly what Yahoo needs. Both of these views are being voiced – but the people who worked alongside her at Google are her loudest supporters. They say she’s smart, hardworking and capable.

There is no shortage of voices among former co-workers and colleagues who believe Mayer has it in her to be a capable, if prickly, CEO. Many believe she is just what Yahoo needs. But as welcome as a Yahoo revival would be – and the tepid earnings results Yahoo posted Tuesday show how far it needs to go – the odds of it happening are simply against it, regardless of who is in charge.

Corporate turnarounds are painful, ungainly and notoriously difficult things to pull off. When they work, they take years and they usually happen in older, commodified industries. On the Web, things change so quickly and competition is so intense that Yahoo can’t afford a few years to right itself. Other Web companies, like MySpace and AOL have repeatedly tried to turn things around with no luck.

And there is a lot at Yahoo to turn around. The company has never had a coherent business strategy. It could never decide whether it was a media company or a technology company. In the glory days of 10 or 15 years ago, Yahoo thrived almost by sheer luck, setting up features like mail, news and financial data that resonated with the Web’s early audience. But that piecemeal strategy endures today to Yahoo’s harm. Google’s mission is to organize information. Facebook’s is to connect people. And Yahoo? It’s a site collecting a bunch of aging Web features.

If Mayer can bring Yahoo a distinct and appealing mission, she’ll face other daunting tasks: remaking a corporate culture that smothers promising sites like Flickr into oblivion; building a search asset that doesn’t rely on Microsoft’s Bing; and above all, giving Yahoo a strong presence on mobile devices. If Facebook is struggling on this front, what chance does Yahoo have?

All of this will need to happen in a year or two, because by then the rules of what works on the Web will be rewritten all over again. Mayer can buy innovative startups to put Yahoo back on the cutting edge, but it may mean entering bidding wars with Google and Facebook. Yahoo has $2 billion in cash, while Facebook has around $20 billion, Google $50 billion and Microsoft $60 billion.

And Mayer will also need to contend with a vocal activist investor on its board, one insisting on profit growth. Web giants like Facebook and Google grow by being willing to invest in risky projects, but Mayer’s hands may be tied by the board’s insistence on short-term growth.

Mayer has a lot to bring Yahoo. Her reputation will likely inject Yahoo with a new vigor, stem the exodus of Yahoo engineers and help the company hire new talent. But there will be challenges, too. Her experience at Google search may not be much help at a company that gave up its search engine. Her experience at Google Local doesn’t show a track record of success on the mobile web. And as Mathew Ingram pointed out, Yahoo has become much more of a media company than a technology company in the past few years.

A Google veteran like Mayer could have easily raised capital to found a promising startup. Or she could have jumped to a higher title at a Google rival. But signing up as CEO of Yahoo? A company with a fraction of the cash that Google has? Either Mayer has some plan to save Yahoo nobody has thought of, or… well, welcome to the maw, Marissa Mayer.

*CORRECTION: Due to a technical error, the piece originally incorrectly referred to Yahoo’s “superfluous question mark.” It is an exclamation mark.

Yahoo’s stock in Ali Baba is worth $14 billion.   Yahoo also owns 35% of Yahoo Japan. This is a joint venture with a Japanese company called Softbank. Together, they own and operate Japan’s biggest internet site called Yahoo Japan. Yahoo Japan trades on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.   Yahoo’s stake in Yahoo Japan is worth about $4 billion.   At the end of 2011, Yahoo had more than $2 billion in cash in its accounts...And it has no debt.   Here is what the value inside the Yahoo house adds up to:

$14 billion for its ownership in Ali Baba 
$4 billion for its ownership in Yahoo Japan 
$2 billion in cash 

So, Yahoo is worth $20 billion. Right now, the stock market values Yahoo at $19 billion. Just take a good look at that. Here is a company the stock market says is worth $19 billion. But the hidden value inside Yahoo is actually worth $20 billion.

I still havent mentioned Yahoos's main U.S. business, Yahoo.com. You're getting that, too...in addition to the $20 billion I've already mentioned. In other words, Apple will get Yahoo for free plus $20 billion in cash; all for $19 billion (assuming, that it could buy at Yahoo's current share price).

So how much is Yahoo.com worth? Yahoo is Still a Powerhouse. As I said, the stock market is currently valuing Yahoo at $19 billion. Now, to be fair, Yahoo's internet business has struggled for a few years. Competitors like Facebook and Google have taken market shares from Yahoo. Despite that, Yahoo is still the second-largest internet media company in the world. Yahoo has over 700 million users worldwide. Yahoo reaches 86% of all Americans through its websites. Its internet sites are viewed by 178 million unique users monthly. Its email service is used by 70 million people globally. It;s the No. 2 online display advertising company in the world. Yahoo's mission was best described by its first CEO Tim Koogle To ffulfill peoples need to find and get connected to the information that matters to them. That's still Yahoo's mission today.

I use Yahoo Finance every day. It is still the top financial website in the world. So, like Apple, Yahoo has a very loyal customer base.     Online display advertising pays for all those services people love. For example, on the Yahoo Finance pages that I frequent, I see advertisements for brokers like E*Trade, Ameritrade, or Options Express. Yahoo receives money for displaying those ads. Some advertisers pay Yahoo more if their ads are clicked.

Apple is renowned for its high standards. It won’t go near anything that it considers to be below its standards. But Yahoo’s widgets passed the test. Every computer that Apple ships contains a “dashboard” that features these little programs. In fact, it’s the only non-Apple software Apple installs in its computers.
 
Also, Yahoo was the first company to create email apps for the iPad and the iPhone. In his keynote speech introducing the iPad, Steve Jobs specifically mentioned Yahoo Mail as the best email app.
 
In 2011, Yahoo generated $2.2 billion in revenue through online display advertising!! The global market of online display advertising is valued at $25 billion. Industry analysts estimate that this market is growing 20% a year worldwide.

Yahoo also sells ads that show up when you search for something online. When someone clicks on an ad that Yahoo displays, Yahoo makes money. Yahoo generated $1.9 billion in this business, in partnership with Microsoft. In this partnership, Microsoft makes the search technology and Yahoo brings in the customers. Yahoo has so many customers, that Microsoft is willing to pay $400 million a year to get access to them. For Yahoo, that is free money! That $400 million a year comes in with no effort from Yahoo.

Cash flow is the best way to measure the strength of an internet business. Yahoo’s businesses are cash-flow monsters. In 2011, Yahoo generated $1.3 billion in operating cash flow. Cash flow like that allows Yahoo to buy back stock. When companies buy back their stock, it acts like a dividend for its investors. Over the last two years, that added dividend has amounted to nearly $3 billion, or 15%, based on the current value of the company. Yahoo’s cash flow also enables it to be entirely debt free.

Now, I did say that Yahoo has struggled to keep up with Facebook and Google recently. But Yahoo is innovating and looking to grow by introducing new products for the iPad and iPhone. That’s why Wall Street analysts are only estimating sales growth of 4% and earnings growth per share of 13%. But Wall Street analysts are not crediting Yahoo for a very special app called IntoNow, which has extraordinary potential.     Yahoo has an app called IntoNow that syncs to a television. It can listen to the television show you are watching and tell you information about it (like the specific episode). Then, it shares the information with your friends, allowing people to share and discuss different programs. Time magazine say IntoNow is the best smartphone app of 2011. IntoNow was awarded the “Most Significant Technology, platform or product” award by TV of Tomorrow, for the most innovative technology product of 2011. Apple stores’ Rewind publication says IntoNow is the best social networking iPad app of 2011. MG Siegeler, writing for the influential tech blog Tech Crunch, said he was amazed and dumbfounded when he used it.   An app like IntoNow has the potential to jump-start sales and earnings growth at Yahoo. Share price and value will jump soon after.

Personally, I'm of the view that IntoNow is a transformational technology. It’s similar to other new transformational technologies that led to huge gains. These include personal investments, such as investing in Google at its IPO at $85, buying shares of Netflix at $25, and Apple. Now, I didn’t always hold these companies for maximum gains, but if you held them to their peaks...you'd have gains of 788% for Google, 1,100% for Netflix, and 537% for Apple. When it comes to investing, it's not enough to simply identify the next big thing. You must identify it when the world is not expecting it to be the next big thing.

So, when the world figures it out.....big gains! Yahoo's IntoNow has all the elements to be a transformational technology. Its easy to use. IntoNow is going be used by households alongside their TVs. TVs are a huge market because Americans watch about 3.5 hours of TV a day. That’s 1,278 hours per year. But it’s not just Americans who love TV. Worldwide, people watch about 3 hours and 12 minutes of TV each day. That’s why TV advertising is a $420 billion global market. IntoNow will allow Yahoo to tap into this huge market.

Before he died, Steve Jobs said that Apple had figured out to how to build a TV that was easier to use, and could directly connect to our music and video files on our computers. “It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices...It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine.”   Yahoo’s IntoNow fits that description exactly. It seamlessly syncs your TV to your smartphone or tablet computer. Once you’re connected, IntoNow can act like a remote control to your TV and all your music, videos, and information that you use on your devices to connect you to the internet. The only part missing is the connection between the person and the TV. That’s the part that Yahoo is an expert at through its IntoNow app. Apple is looking for the key to unleash its Apple TV........Yahoo is it.

Mayer isn't a factor here. She is merely a passenger on a boat that is being dragged to dock by a Tugboat.