ORLANDO, Fla. – Yahoo! Inc. announced the launch of three new targeting products for brand and performance marketers that are designed to help them reach the audiences that matter most when advertising online. The announcement was made during the Company’s keynote presentation at the annual conference of the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

“As the economy continues to put pressure on advertising budgets, marketers are looking for increased accountability for every dollar they spend. Yahoo!’s new targeting products significantly improve the ability for search and display advertisers to reach their target audience, providing increased efficiency and accountability,” said Michael Walrath, senior vice president, Advertising Marketplaces Group, Yahoo!. “Yahoo! remains incredibly well positioned to meet the growing advertiser demand for performance marketing offerings, and no other company can provide marketers with such scale and expertise across search and display advertising.”

The new products include:

* Search Retargeting, which gives advertisers the ability to target display advertising based on user search activities;
* Enhanced Retargeting, which allows advertisers to deliver dynamically generated display ads across the Yahoo! network based on user activity on an advertiser’s site; and
* Enhanced Targeting capabilities for search advertising, including ad scheduling and demographic targeting within search.

Search Retargeting for Display Advertising

Yahoo!’s Search Retargeting is a customized display targeting solution that lets advertisers capture user interest from search terms and retarget the user with display ads throughout the Yahoo! Network. For example, if a user searches for the keyword “sandals,” indicating strong purchase intent, an advertiser can target that user with a tailored display ad for footwear.

“We are always looking at new ways to maximize our ad spend while utilizing the most cost-effective solutions that convert users on the backend. By using Yahoo!’s Search Retargeting display product, we were able to achieve an effective cost per lead that was at the same level as our search backend goals and 50% lower than our regular display retargeting efforts, meaning that our display campaign was performing close to our search campaign,” said Rico de León, senior director of Media Services Operations, at University of Phoenix.

Enhanced Retargeting for Display Advertising

Yahoo! is also introducing Enhanced Retargeting, which combines standard site retargeting with dynamic ad generation. For example, users who visit an airline website to check offers for flights from SFO-JFK can be served a personalized offer for that specific flight when they visit a page within the Yahoo! Network. In a recent trial, a market-leading online travel company saw a 230% increase in total bookings and a 651% increase in click-through rate when comparing Enhanced Retargeting to their traditional retargeting campaign.

Enhanced Targeting Capabilities for Search Advertising

Recognizing the need for more focused audience segmentation and improved control, Yahoo! Search Marketing will offer advertisers Enhanced Targeting capabilities for Sponsored Search and Content Match programs (expected to start in March). New features are designed to extend the advertiser’s control over where and when an ad is shown at both the campaign and ad group level, including what time of day and day of the week an advertiser would like campaigns to run (ad scheduling) and what age and gender they’d like to reach (demographic). Advertisers will be able to vary their bids for different segments in order to increase their ability to reach the desired audience.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com.

Business Wire is the official news wire for Search Engine Strategies London 2009. Breaking news releases, advisories, photos, and multimedia are available at Tradeshownews.com, Business Wire’s trade show, conference, and event news resource.

Listed below are Search Engine Strategies London 2009 exhibitor profiles.
Company:           ACQUISIO
Stand:         305
Media Contact:         MARC POIRIER
Phone:         450.465.2631 x210
E-mail:         mpoirier@acquisio.com
Web:         www.acquisio.com

Montreal-based Acquisio is a SaaS (software as a service) company that offers a pay-per-click (Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, MSN AdCenter) management software designed specifically for advertising agencies. The tool, Acquisio SEARCH, allows campaign managers to launch, manage, and optimize all of their client’s campaigns from a single interface, without the need to log into Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, or MSN AdCenter. Additionally, it provides integrated reporting for designing and building beautiful client-ready PDF reports to help you save even more time.

Company:         Efficient Frontier
Stand:         Track Sponsor
Media Contact:         Merinda Peppard
Phone:         2071665220
E-mail:         sales-europe@efrontier.com
Web:         www.efrontier.com/uk

Efficient Frontier is the market and technology leader in providing paid search marketing solutions. The company provides the most powerful, most effective search engine marketing technology and comprehensive strategic and tactical services, to ensure that clients with large-scale, complex search marketing campaigns can achieve the highest possible return on investment. The largest advertisers in the most competitive markets use Efficient Frontier to achieve unprecedented levels of search marketing efficiencies, scalability, risk reduction and campaign growth. The company is headquartered in Sunnyvale, USA with offices in New York, the United Kingdom, France and India and licensing partnerships in Japan and Australia. Please visit www.efrontier.com/uk and blog.efrontier.com.

Company:         The Search Monitor
Media Contact:         Laura Nolte
Phone:         321-206-9705
E-mail:         laura@greentheoryinteractive.com
Web:         www.thesearchmonitor.com

The Search Monitor provides real-time competitor monitoring software. TSM crawls and monitors Google, Yahoo, MSN, social media, and shopping engines daily and can be geo-targeted. Interactive agencies, search marketers, and affiliate marketers use The Search Monitor for several reasons (1) to acquire competitive intelligence on paid and organic search including market share, keyword research, ad copy research, discovery of competitive promotions/offers, rank, and budgeting strategies; (2) to police brand use in ad copy, display urls, and branded keyword sponsors; (3) to identify and measure brand buzz; and (4) to police affiliate marketers for compliance with affiliate programs.

Company:         WebTrends
Stand:         309
Media Contact:         Thomas Flischer
E-mail:         Thomas@octopuscomms.net

About WebTrends Inc.

WebTrends provides web analytics and online marketing solutions to optimise marketing campaigns and customer engagement. WebTrends Marketing Lab delivers the industry’s most recognised analytics, SEM, and visitor intelligence solutions to enable companies to understand their customers, drive customer engagement, and enhance marketing and brand awareness. Thousands of leading global organisations, including HSBC, Microsoft, Reuters, General Mills, and Ticketmaster have chosen WebTrends business solutions and client services expertise to optimise their customers’ online experiences.

For more information, visit: www.webtrends.com

About Business Wire

Business Wire, a Berkshire Hathaway company, is utilized by tens of thousands of member companies and organizations worldwide to functionally enhance and communicate investor relations and public relations content to target audiences. As a recognized disclosure service in the United States, Canada and a dozen European countries, Business Wire facilitates the simultaneous flow of market-moving press releases from corporations to financial markets and their audiences, including regulatory authorities, media, investors, financial information systems and consumer news services. Business Wire also handles XBRL tagging, document formatting and regulatory filing into EDGAR, SEDAR, FSA and other systems.

Communications professionals turn to Business Wire to optimize and issue press releases, photos and multimedia to news organizations, journalists, trade publications, search engines, and individuals, with full-text posting to web sites, online services and databases. A range of distribution options enables members to target by geography, industry, news theme and audience demographics.

Founded in 1961, Business Wire has dual headquarters in San Francisco and New York, with 30 bureaus in cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Miami, Paris, Frankfurt, London, Brussels, Tokyo, Toronto and Sydney and reciprocal offices throughout the world. Business Wire’s patented NX data platform supports XML, XHTML and XBRL code that enhances news release interactivity, social media sharing and search engine optimization. More information about Business Wire and its services is located on its website at www.BusinessWire.com.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Efficient Frontier, the worldwide leader in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) technology and services, released the U.S. Search Engine Performance Report: Q4 2008. The report, the largest independent research in the search marketing industry, was based on an analysis of 92 billion impressions and 600 million clicks across a portion of Efficient Frontier customers, which includes some of the world’s largest brands. The results of the research indicate that Google has maintained its hold on the search advertising market with 76 percent market share, and Yahoo continued to increase its presence, gaining 3 percent market share year-over-year. Despite the economic downturn and reports of the erosion of other marketing channels in 2008, the index of Efficient Frontier customers included in the Q4 report saw a minimal 8 percent decrease year-over-year, while the retail sector saw a 9 percent uptick in spending year-over-year, an indication of the strength of the search marketing channel.

According to industry research firm, eMarketer, “search ad spending may not be recession-proof, but it is proving to be recession-resistant.” eMarketer estimates that although the rate of growth is projected to fall over the next three years, search ad spending growth will continue to be positive, in double digits every year until 2012 when it will rise again to nearly 14 percent.*

“Search engine marketing remains the most accountable sales and client acquisition channel on or offline,” said James Beriker, President and CEO of Efficient Frontier. “To continue to achieve stellar results, the current recession has made it even more critical for search marketers to know their metrics and manage campaigns based on actionable market, sales funnel and conversion data. The reason we work with more than 150 of the most sophisticated search marketers in 20 markets worldwide, and manage more spend than any other firm, is that we use math to automate the process of accurately modeling data and making the right overall strategy and keyword bidding decisions to deliver optimal performance, no matter the market dynamics.”

The Efficient Frontier report shows that Google’s market share leadership was backed by significant gains from Google Content, which experienced 63 percent growth in 2008, clearly reflecting Google’s ongoing focus on improving its targeting and monetization capabilities across the AdSense network. Yahoo, which increased its market share by 1.9 percent in Q3, added another 0.5 percent in Q4 to close out the year with a 3 percent annual gain and total 20 percent market share. Microsoft Live Search now represents 4.2 percent of total search advertising spend for advertisers in the Efficient Frontier index.

ROI Trends

Interestingly, a closer look at spending between the months of September and December 2008 revealed that ROI dropped in most verticals between September and October due to the economic downturn. This led advertisers to reduce budgets and focus on maintaining a positive return. This shift suggests that SEM advertisers have moved from a volume strategy to an ROI and efficiency strategy where budgets are adjusted dynamically to maintain a targeted ROI despite a reduction in search volume. Leveraging Efficient Frontier’s technology and services, its customer-base improved ROI in Q4 by 1 percent year-over-year and 3 percent quarter-over-quarter.

“When shifts in the online marketplace make it more difficult to deliver the desired results, advertisers must depend on the right technology to do the heavy lifting,” added Beriker. “This is where our customers have a distinct advantage. The move at the end of Q4 from a volume model to an ROI and efficiency model needed to happen instantaneously for advertisers to benefit. Our proprietary technology combined with the sophistication of our customers made that shift possible.”

Additional Search Engine Marketing Trends

* Large vs. Small Advertisers: Small advertisers in the U.S. accounted for a greater decrease in search advertising spend than larger, more established brands. Advertisers spending less than $50,000 per month cut spending by 23 percent year-over-year, with many of the cuts coming between Q3 and Q4 of 2008. Companies that spent more than $200,000 per month only reduced spending by 9 percent over the same time period. These margins are typical during a recession when larger, more sophisticated brands aggressively utilize the search channel to drive revenue and sales while strengthening their position.
* Overall Impression Trends: Overall impressions for search engines are down 6 percent year-over-year. From Q4 2007 to Q4 2008, Google experienced a 3 percent decrease, while Yahoo lost 13 percent impression volume. Microsoft Live garnered 21 percent more impressions in Q4 than in Q3 2008 and gained 18 percent more impressions year-over-year.
* Click-Through Rate Trends: Overall click-through-rates (CTRs) in search were relatively flat year-over-year, gaining only 2 percent. While Microsoft Live Search had higher CTRs than all other search engines from Q1 to Q3 of 2008, it dipped below Google Search in Q4 2008. Google Search CTRs decreased by 2 percent year-over-year, while Yahoo CTRs improved 3 percent year-over-year. Google Content CTRs increased 150 percent year-over-year.
* Cost-Per-Click Highlights: Overall search cost-per-click (CPC) is down 5 percent year-over-year. In the last quarter of 2008, Google Search’s CPC declined by 8 percent, while Microsoft Live Search declined by 3 percent and Yahoo Search declined by 1 percent. Microsoft Live Search has consistently maintained a higher CPC than all other search engines, indicating that advertisers are willing to pay a premium for a high quality, albeit smaller audience.

Trends by Vertical Market

* Automotive: 15 percent decline in spending over 2007, due primarily to lower impression volume, reflecting weakness in consumer demand.
* Finance: 25 percent decline in spend over 2007, with impressions up by 5 percent reflecting high customer demand for financial services, with but fewer qualified conversions.
* Retail: 9 percent increase in spend over 2007, reflecting the strength of the channel in price comparison and shopping efficiency, particularly for more established online brands that increased spend to reach revenue goals.
* Travel and Entertainment: 24 percent decrease in spend year-over year, primarily due to reduced traffic volume, which is down in by 18 percent in the sector year-over-year.

The complete U.S. Search Engine Performance Report: Q4, 2008 is available for download from the Efficient Frontier website.

Research Methodology

Analysis for the Efficient Frontier report was based on data from a fixed sample of the overall Efficient Frontier U.S. customer base from Q4 2007 through Q4 2008, and covers nearly 92 billion impressions and 600 million clicks on search and content ads on Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Live Search. The report includes data from advertisers in the financial services, travel and entertainment, retail, automotive and business-to-business verticals.

About Efficient Frontier

Efficient Frontier is the worldwide market and technology leader in providing search engine marketing (SEM) solutions for large advertisers and agencies. Founded in 2002, Efficient Frontier pioneered the application of modern portfolio theory to SEM and today combines its core predictive modeling algorithms and bidding technology with comprehensive strategic and tactical value-added services to manage more than $750 million in annual search spend globally. The largest and most sophisticated advertisers and agencies partner with Efficient Frontier to achieve and sustain optimal campaign performance and growth in highly complex and competitive search marketplaces. The company has over 200 employees and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA with offices in New York, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Hong Kong, and India, and technology licensing partnerships in Japan and Australia. Efficient Frontier is a privately held company with funding from Redpoint Ventures and Cambrian Ventures. For more information, please visit www.efrontier.com and subscribe to the Efficient Frontier blog at blog.efrontier.com/.

*eMarketer: Search Ad Spending: Reactions to a Recession, January 2009

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Continuing the momentum of the Yahoo! Open Strategy (Y!OS), Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO) introduced enhancements to Yahoo! Mail, providing consumers with a “smarter inbox” experience that will begin rolling out to users on a limited basis over the coming months. This next generation of Yahoo! Mail is part of the company’s ongoing effort to deliver more personally relevant starting points on the Web by integrating social functionality and opening products up to content and services from outside of the Yahoo! network.

The Yahoo! Mail smarter inbox experience is the company’s largest-scale implementation of its Y!OS initiative, bringing to life Yahoo!’s open and social efforts in its consumer products. Yahoo! Mail is a place where millions of people start their day, prioritize their daily activities, and continually check in to stay connected with and informed about what matters most to them. The goal of the next generation of Yahoo! Mail is to address the changing communications needs of consumers by streamlining access to the most relevant and useful information, and helping users to become more productive, all from within their inbox.

The smarter inbox experience features a new Yahoo! Mail Welcome Page which surfaces messages, information and activity updates from people users care about most, as well as an updated inbox and folder view that filters messages from those personal connections. The smarter Yahoo! Mail inbox also gives users immediate access to relevant third-party applications that can leverage the user’s email content, calendar and contacts with the user’s permission.

Smarter Inbox Addresses Consumer Needs

Among the challenges Web users worldwide face today are inbox overload and the growing inefficiency of managing information across multiple Web sites. Consumers spend between 10-15 hours online per week, an increase of 72% since 2004.1 The volume of email received by consumers has increased significantly as well, with nearly 100 billion email messages sent daily worldwide2 — a number that is expected to increase by 27% in 2011 to 124 billion.3 The smarter inbox experience addresses these issues.

Yahoo! Mail’s smarter inbox addresses these issues by providing a filtered view of the users’ messages and by bringing applications from across the Web right into Yahoo! Mail. New features include:

* Connections: Users can “connect” with others using Yahoo!’s universal profile service and designate the people whose messages and activity updates are most important to them.
* Filtered View of the Inbox and Folders: Yahoo! Mail users can now view a prioritized view of the inbox and folders based on their connections.
* New Welcome Page with Messages from Connections and Updates: Users receive a preview of messages from their connections, see connection suggestions made by Yahoo!, and have the ability to send and receive connection invitations. Users can also see activity Update feeds from their connections, including activity across Yahoo! and, in the future, across the Web.
* Applications and Gallery: Users have new ways to communicate and be more productive, with new communications applications included in Yahoo! Mail’s left-hand navigation panel. Developers from the Web’s top brands will soon have the ability to integrate their services right into Yahoo! Mail.

“Yahoo! Mail users have told us that they want to be more productive when they get to their inbox and they want help breaking through the clutter and getting to the communications that matter most to them,” said John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo! Mail. “We’ve created a smarter inbox experience to address the problem of inbox overload. We’re also embedding really useful applications directly into the inbox, which should help people be even more efficient when they get to Yahoo! Mail.”

Updates Feed inside Yahoo! Mail, Across Yahoo!

People today are communicating and connecting with others in various ways, from email, to blogs, to real-time status messages. Yahoo! Mail users will now become more engaged, on multiple levels, with the connections they have in email. These privileged online relationships enable social communication and sharing experiences and will extend beyond Yahoo! Mail, helping users discover a more relevant and compelling experience across all of Yahoo!’s services.

For example, the Updates feature brings together various forms of communication in one place and allows users to stay up to speed on a range of their connections’ activities and interests and provides richer social experiences across Yahoo! and across the Web. The initial integration of Updates into Yahoo! Mail will include user activity related to new connections, the universal Yahoo! profile, Yahoo! Buzz, and Yahoo! properties such as TV, Music and Travel. Third-party Web sites can also integrate their users’ activity streams with Yahoo! Updates using the Yahoo! Social Platform and developer APIs or via applications deployed through the Yahoo! Application Platform into My Yahoo!. In the coming months, users can look forward to seeing additional activity updates from services across the Web.

Open Applications Inside Yahoo! Mail

In addition, Yahoo! has started a limited beta test bringing third party applications into Yahoo! Mail. Features allowing users to communicate in richer ways, to share media with their friends and families, and to get things done faster will be accessible to beta testers in the U.S., and additional applications will be added throughout 2009 as the service becomes generally available. Initial applications include:

* Family Journal: build a family tree inside Yahoo! Mail and easily share with relatives.
* Flickr: share Flickr photos with friends and family right from the inbox.
* Flixster: share movie show times, trailers and reviews instantly from the inbox.
* WordPress: post photos, links, and more from the inbox to a WordPress blog.
* Xoopit: see and share all the photos stored in email, including attachments and links to photo sharing sites, in one organized ‘photo view’ of the inbox.
* Yahoo! Greetings with American Greetings: use the autocomplete email address feature to send an ecard seamlessly from Yahoo! Mail.

Developers to Benefit from the Smarter Inbox

As part of the Yahoo! Open Strategy to open up to third party publishers, developers, and advertisers in the form of global platform services, the Yahoo! Mail smarter inbox experience adds to the transformation of the Yahoo! Network and serves as an unprecedented distribution opportunity for developers to share their innovative applications with Yahoo! users worldwide. Yahoo! is working with developers from across the Web to integrate their products and services into Yahoo! in 2009 and beyond, and Yahoo! Mail adds a major new footprint for developers that will only continue to grow. Developers can find out more at http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2008/12/mailapplications.html.

Yahoo! Updates gives developers a viral distribution channel for their applications across the Yahoo! network, including the new universal profile, Yahoo! Messenger, Yahoo! Toolbar and now Yahoo! Mail. Third-party Web sites and services can incorporate their users’ activity streams onto Yahoo!, extending their reach and connections with consumers across Yahoo!’s social graph.

In addition to these new features and functionality for Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! separately announced today several other product updates that demonstrate ongoing momentum for the Yahoo! Open Strategy. These include providing My Yahoo! users with the ability to add third-party applications built on the Yahoo! Application Platform, a preview version of the new Yahoo! Toolbar that enables constant access to friend Updates and essential Yahoo! and third-party applications as people browse the Web, and the surfacing of relevant Yahoo! Updates based on user activity on Yahoo! TV, Music and Travel.

Smarter Inbox Availability

Select Yahoo! Mail users in the United States and Australia will begin to experience the social features of the smarter inbox experience, including the new Welcome Page, inbox and folder-view enhancements, and connections and Updates functionality beginning today. A more limited group of users based in the United States will begin beta testing the open applications today. Yahoo! plans to bring together the social and open features into Yahoo! Mail in the first half of 2009.

About Yahoo! Mail

Launched in October 1997, Yahoo! Mail is one of the world’s largest, most popular free email services with more than 275 million monthly users worldwide.4 Yahoo! Mail helps people stay in touch at home, at work, or while traveling for business or pleasure, and is available in 22 languages. Yahoo! Mail is fully integrated with Yahoo!’s many other popular services to make it easy to access all the Internet services people need. Yahoo! Mail has recently received the Best of Web award from PC World, and was awarded Editors’ Choice by both PC Magazine and CNET.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Yahoo! Inc (NASDAQ:YHOO) announced the most popular searches, themes, and trends as part of its 2008 Year in Review (yearinreview.yahoo.com), as told through the billions of searches conducted by millions of Yahoo! users around the globe every month.

“Every day, people turn to the web to learn more about the world around them. Their searches reveal which news events, personalities and issues made an impact in 2008,” said Heather Cabot, Yahoo! Web Life Editor. “This year people were captivated by the historic U.S. Presidential election and Olympic triumphs. They also closely followed every facet of the economic downturn and enjoyed a little escapism by devouring celebrity gossip and delving into online video games.”

The Yahoo! 2008 Year in Review not only presents the top ten searches, but overall themes and popular trends that bubbled to the surface, including the economy, politicians, news stories, Olympians, rising celebrities, influential women, and notable deaths. Also included in this year’s review are additional top tens in select areas throughout Yahoo! such as Yahoo! Food, Shine, Tech, Green, Shopping, Travel, Games, Movies, Music, Local, Upcoming, Hot Jobs, most Buzzed-Up stories and clicked-on stories from yahoo.com.

By the Numbers – Top 10 Overall Searches

1. Britney Spears
2. WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment)
3. Barack Obama
4. Miley Cyrus
5. RuneScape
6. Jessica Alba
7. Naruto
8. Lindsay Lohan
9. Angelina Jolie
10. American Idol

Britney Spears has been the most popular search term and person for seven out of eight years. In 2008, she made a comeback with a new album, three MTV Music Awards, a sitcom guest star role and documentary on her rise, fall and career comeback.

Barack Obama was the second most searched for person in 2008. Headlines of his election victory received the most clicks than any other story on yahoo.com this year, and he was the third most searched term overall. Obama soared up the search ranks tremendously as the election campaign moved forward with consumers using Yahoo! Search to get informed, learn more about him and decide how to vote in this critically important election.

This year also marked the coming out party for Miley Cyrus, who discarded her Disney persona of “Hannah Montana” and launched her own album under her real name to make the top five. Jessica Alba’s wedding and new baby spurred additional interest for her this year. With success at the box office and new baby pictures, Angelina Jolie continues to be in the public spotlight. Popular entertainment properties also were in demand, including wrestling (WWE), video games (RuneScape), anime (Naruto) and television (American Idol).

Market Meltdowns – Top 10 Economic Searches

1. IRS Stimulus Checks
2. Oil Prices
3. Gold Prices
4. Gas Prices
5. Dow Jones
6. Sallie Mae
7. Stock Market
8. AIG
9. Foreclosures
10. Debt Consolidation

As 2008 came to a close, the nation’s economic turmoil battled with the presidential election for the hearts and wallets of searchers. In February, the Treasury Department announced it would be disbursing stimulus checks to boost economic activity and taxpayers clamored to know if the check was actually in the mail. The fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis hit Wall Street hard in October as the Dow Jones Industrials fell to its lowest point, producing the biggest point drop in the Dow’s 112-year history. Gas prices marked the only silver lining, falling sharply late in the year after reaching all-time highs during the summer.

Politics As Unusual – Top 10 Politician Searches

1. Barack Obama
2. Sarah Palin
3. John McCain
4. Hillary Clinton
5. George Bush
6. Ron Paul
7. John Edwards
8. Mike Huckabee
9. Arnold Schwarzenegger
10. Mitt Romney

It was an election of many firsts. Not only did the U.S. elect an African American president for the first time but 2008 also had a notable campaign by former First Lady and Senator Hillary Clinton, and the first female nominee for Vice President in the Republican Party, Alaska governor Sarah Palin. Other candidates secured their fair share of searches as well. On the other hand, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn’t involved in the presidential race, but searches for the “Governator” beat Democratic vice presidential pick Joe Biden and Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

News Stories – Top 10 News Stories

1. Hurricanes
2. Caylee and Casey Anthony
3. Election 2008
4. Pakistan
5. Pregnant Man
6. China
7. Iraq
8. Shelley Malil
9. Patrick Swayze
10. Afghanistan

Natural disasters affected virtually every corner of our planet. Hurricanes Gustav and Ike devastated the southern U.S. and the Caribbean. The fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan continued to be a focus throughout the year. But a few surprises to this list included the human interest stories that captivated the curiosity of the country, such as Caylee Anthony, a missing Florida toddler; the pregnant man who allegedly gave birth to a baby girl; and Patrick Swayze’s battle against cancer.

Counting Olympic Gold – Top 10 Olympian Searches

1. Michael Phelps
2. Leryn Franco
3. Serena Williams
4. Kobe Bryant
5. Shawn Johnson
6. Jennie Finch
7. Misty May Treanor
8. Ronaldinho
9. Alicia Sacramone
10. Nastia Liukin

A worldwide audience couldn’t get enough of the Olympics, hungrily hunting down every detail on the characters playing out sports’ most marvelously unscripted drama. The Olympics was a nightly epic story, in which Michael Phelps played the ideal leading man, with the mystery of his estranged father breaking the list of most clicked on stories of yahoo.com.

New Brat Pack – Top 10 Rising Celebrity Searches

1. Miley Cyrus
2. Vanessa Anne Hudgens
3. Chris Brown
4. Jonas Brothers
5. Rihanna
6. Taylor Swift
7. Jamie Lynn Spears
8. Hayden Panettiere
9. Zac Efron
10. Selena Gomez

In 2008, tabloid staples cleaned up their acts due to court-ordered conservatorships (Britney Spears), pledges of sobriety (Lindsay Lohan), and motherhood (Nicole Richie). As a result, celebrity publications and bloggers shifted their focus to a new, younger set of headline makers, the New Brat Pack. Like their 1980s counterparts, the New Brat Pack celebs appear in each other’s movies, music videos and social circles. They’re all young (21 and under), popular and major money makers. And, their youth subjects them to greater public scrutiny. Disney protégés are coming into their own with huge success, including Miley Cyrus, Vanessa Hudgens, the Jonas Brothers and Zac Efron.

Breaking The Glass Ceiling – Top 10 Searched Influential Women

1. Angelina Jolie
2. Sarah Palin
3. Oprah
4. Hillary Clinton
5. Gina Carano
6. Tina Fey
7. Michelle Obama
8. Katie Couric
9. Barbara Walters
10. Dara Torres

Not only were Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton closer than ever to the nation’s top elected offices, but many other women were popular among Yahoo! searchers this year. The presidential race fed into a huge rise in popularity for Tina Fey (portraying Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live”), Michelle Obama (wife of the President-elect) and Katie Couric (political interviewer and newscaster). Undefeated kickboxing champ Gina Carano also upped her profile in her turn as Crush on “American Gladiators,” then later made television history in the first primetime female fight.

Final Farewells – Top 10 Send-Offs

1. Heath Ledger
2. Bernie Mac
3. Paul Newman
4. Randy Pausch
5. George Carlin
6. Estelle Getty
7. Tim Russert
8. Brad Renfro
9. Isaac Hayes
10. Boyd Coddington

2008 began with the unexpected death of actor Heath Ledger. Ledger’s death launched the world into a stunned Search frenzy over the actor who showed promise of being a Hollywood great. His passing renewed searches for 25-year-old Brad Renfro, a child actor who died in a heroin overdose a week earlier.

To find out more about the Yahoo! 2008 Year in Review go to yearinreview.yahoo.com or search for “2008 Year in Review” on yahoo.com.

About the Yahoo! 2008 Year in Review Methodology

To develop the Yahoo! Year in Review, our editors analyze search queries based upon a number of factors, including absolute volume and growth versus previous periods, to see which themes and trends bubble to the surface. Individual users and their search queries always remain anonymous.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com or the company’s blog, Yodel Anecdotal.

Yahoo! and the Yahoo! logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Yahoo! Inc. All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO) today announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a search for a new Chief Executive Officer. Jerry Yang, co-Founder of Yahoo!, has decided to return to his former role as Chief Yahoo! upon the appointment of his successor as CEO, and he will also continue to serve on the Board. Yang, 40, assumed the CEO role at the Board’s request in June 2007, and he has led Yahoo! through a strategic repositioning and transformation of its platform.

Chairman Roy Bostock, working with the independent directors and in consultation with Jerry Yang, is leading the process of assessing potential candidates and determining finalists for consideration. The search will encompass both internal and external candidates, and the Board has retained Heidrick & Struggles, a leading international executive search firm, to assist in the process.

“Over the past year and a half, despite extraordinary challenges and distractions, Jerry Yang has led the repositioning of Yahoo! on an open platform model as well as the improved alignment of costs and revenues,” said Roy Bostock. “Jerry and the Board have had an ongoing dialogue about succession timing, and we all agree that now is the right time to make the transition to a new CEO who can take the company to the next level. We are deeply grateful to Jerry for his many contributions as CEO over the past 18 months, and we are pleased that he plans to stay actively involved at Yahoo! as a key executive and member of the Board.”

“From founding this company to guiding its growth into a trusted global brand that is indispensible to millions of people, I have always sought to do what is best for our franchise,” said Jerry Yang. “When the Board asked me to become CEO and lead the transformation of the Company, I did so because it was important to re-envision the business for a different era to drive more effective growth. Having set Yahoo! on a new, more open path, the time is right for me to transition the CEO role and our global talent to a new leader. I will continue to focus on global strategy and to do everything I can to help Yahoo! realize its full potential and enhance its leading culture of technology and product excellence and innovation.”

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com or the company’s blog, Yodel Anecdotal.

While the implementation of the services agreement with Google would have enabled Yahoo! to accelerate its investments in its top business priorities through an infusion of additional operating cash flow, this deal was incremental to Yahoo!’s product roadmap and does not change Yahoo!’s commitment to innovation and growth in search. The fundamental building blocks of a stronger Yahoo! in both sponsored and algorithmic search were put in place independent of the agreement.

Yahoo! continually optimizes its algorithmic and sponsored search, and we have, in 2008 alone, developed and launched hundreds of improvements all designed to enhance search quality and deliver a more relevant search experience to the company’s users. To that end, Yahoo! has benefited from strong revenue per search (RPS) gains in the U.S. as discussed on the Q3 earnings call. Furthermore, Yahoo! continues to make substantial progress against its Open Strategy and in the deployment of its game changing APT from Yahoo! display advertising platform.

Going forward, Yahoo! plans to continue to provide the cutting-edge advances in products, platforms and services that the industry needs and expects, and intends to be the destination of choice for advertisers and publishers who want to reach one of the largest and most engaged populations of consumers on the web.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Joining fellow founding members, Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO) announced the launch of the Global Network Initiative: Protecting and Advancing Freedom of Expression and Privacy in the Information and Communication Technology Industry (GNI).

This landmark initiative will help guide information and communications technology companies in protecting and advancing freedom of expression and privacy across the globe when they encounter laws and policies that interfere with these fundamental human rights.

“Yahoo! was founded on the belief that access to information can enrich people’s lives, and the principles we unveil today reflect our determination that our actions match our values around the world,” said Jerry Yang, Yahoo!’s CEO and Co-founder. “These principles provide a valuable roadmap for companies like Yahoo! operating in markets where freedom of expression and privacy are unfairly restricted. Through the collective efforts of industry, advocates, and government we will continue to see technology and the Internet as a way to improve people’s lives.”

Today’s announcement represents the result of over two years of work by an international group of information and communications technology companies, human rights organizations, academics, investors and technology leaders. The GNI establishes a core set of Principles on Freedom of Expression and Privacy that will help participating companies protect the use of the Internet as a worldwide vehicle for sharing information, personal expression, innovation and economic development.

Participating companies include Yahoo!, Google, and Microsoft, and human rights groups including Human Rights First, Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, and Human Rights in China. The process was facilitated by the Center for Democracy and Technology and Business for Social Responsibility. The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University was also a key advisor in the process.

Beyond these principles, the GNI establishes a framework for providing communications products and services the world over while ensuring a sustained commitment to protect fundamental human rights. Participating companies and other GNI members have agreed on Implementation Guidelines and a Governance, Accountability and Learning Framework that will ensure that the principles are reflected in their activities and business operations.

“Governments have the ultimate duty to protect their own citizens’ rights, and we realize responsible company actions alone cannot guarantee governments will uphold these obligations That is why GNI participants will also engage with governments and advocate for change where policies or practices are inconsistent with the protection of free expression and privacy,” said Michael Samway, Yahoo! Vice President and Deputy General Counsel.

GNI members commit to protect freedom of expression and privacy, partner with others to ensure collective governance and accountability, and promote its objectives throughout the world. For more information on the GNI please visit www.globalnetworkinitiative.org. (NOTE: Web site goes live Wednesday, October 29th)

While we have much still to accomplish collectively, Yahoo! believes the GNI and our other business and human rights initiatives are important steps in advancing freedom of expression and privacy around the world. Other key Yahoo! initiatives include:

Business Policies and Practices

We established the Yahoo! Business & Human Rights Program, a dedicated set of business policies and practices to promote access to the Internet while limiting ways in which our technologies can be used to suppress freedom of expression and the right to privacy. Yahoo! has previously instituted its own Human Rights Impact Assessment process, similar to the one now being adopted by the GNI, that examines the human rights landscape in a region and offers strategic approaches to protect the rights of our users through legal and operational structures, among other methods.

Yahoo! Human Rights Fund

Jerry Yang announced in November 2007 the intent to create the Yahoo! Human Rights Fund to provide humanitarian and legal support to political dissidents who have been imprisoned for expressing their views online, as well as support for their families.

High-Level Efforts to Release Dissidents

Yahoo! has been, and will continue, working to secure the release of certain political dissidents through ongoing discussions with high-ranking U.S. and Chinese officials, human rights groups, and the State Department. Our CEO Jerry Yang has been to Capitol Hill and to the State Department to discuss this issue, and earlier this year sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urging the Bush Administration to use its diplomatic influence to actively pursue the release of Chinese dissidents imprisoned for exercising their right to freedom of expression.

Global Values/International Fellowships

Yahoo! has also established international fellowships at Stanford and Georgetown Universities to promote the pursuits of journalists from press-restrictive countries and scholars exploring the link between global values, the Internet, and communication technologies. For more information, please visit our Human Rights and Freedom of Expression web page at http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/press/ human-rights-free-expression.cfm. (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser’s address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com or the Company’s blog, Yodel Anecdotal. http://www.ycorpblog.com/

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Efficient Frontier, the worldwide leader in providing Search Engine Marketing technology and services to leading advertisers and agencies, today released the U.S. Search Engine Performance Report: Q3 2008. The report, the largest independent research in the search marketing industry, was based on an analysis of 60 billion impressions and 428 million clicks across an index of Efficient Frontier advertisers. The results of the research indicate that while overall growth has been slowing throughout 2008, return on investment remains strong in this highly productive direct marketing channel.

The report showed that Google continues to gain ground. For every new dollar spent on search advertising in Q3 2008 versus Q3 2007, Google received $1.14, while Yahoo and Microsoft each lost $0.07. Google continues to dominate the overall share of spending at 76%, although the company’s search advertising growth decreased by 1.9 percentage points from Q2 to Q3 2008. Yahoo search gained 1.8 points in the same quarter to bring it to 19.2% of total spent while Microsoft Live Search held relatively steady at 4.8% share.

Of Google’s 76% share, 4.6% was from Google content, an increase of 82.8% for non-financial services advertisers. Google content was the only search engine channel for which all advertisers increased spending in Q3 2008.

“Our data shows that search engine marketing continues to be a highly productive direct marketing channel for advertisers, even in challenging markets,” said James Beriker, President and CEO of Efficient Frontier. “With increased competition and a decrease in the total number of conversions, advertisers will either slash budgets or use advanced technologies to maximize volume and ROI. We’re proud to partner with the most sophisticated search advertisers in the world to continue to drive their ongoing success in these tough markets.”

Other Key Findings

* ROI improved YOY on all three engines for advertisers outside of financial services in the face of increasingly dynamic economic conditions.
* Spending on Google by non-financial services advertisers grew by 3.6% on YOY basis, faster than the overall growth rate of 2.5%. Thus Google gained $1.14 of every new search dollar in Q3 2008 versus Q3 2007, while Yahoo and Microsoft each lost $0.07 for every new dollar spent on search in that period.
* Yahoo accounted for 19.2% of U.S. search engine spending in Q3 2008, losing 1.3 percentage points in share from Q3 2007 but gaining 1.8 percentage points from Q2 2008. Total spending on Yahoo increased by 7.2% from Q2 to Q3 2008 for advertisers outside of the financial services sector, and by 2.5% for those in financial services.
* Microsoft Live Search accounted for 4.8% of U.S. search spending in Q3 2008, down 0.8 percentage points from the previous year. Overall spending on Microsoft Live Search declined for all advertisers on both a YOY and Q/Q basis.
* On a global basis, Google dominated the search marketplace in Q3 2008, capturing more than 85% of search spending share in the UK, Europe, and Australia. In Japan, Google accounted for 55% of search spending.

The complete U.S. Search Engine Performance Report: Q3, 2008 is available for download from the Efficient Frontier website at: http://www.efrontier.com/efficient-frontier/resources/research/getRese archQ308.html (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser’s address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

Research Methodology

Analysis for the Efficient Frontier report was based on data from a fixed sample of Efficient Frontier U.S. clients from Q3 2007 through Q3 2008, and covers nearly 60 billion impressions and more than 428 million clicks on search and content ads on Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Live Search. The report includes data from advertisers in the financial services, travel, retail, automotive and business-to-business verticals.

About Efficient Frontier

Efficient Frontier is the market and technology leader in providing Search Engine Marketing (SEM) solutions for leading global advertisers and agencies. Founded in 2002, Efficient Frontier pioneered the application of modern portfolio theory to SEM and today combines its core predictive modeling algorithms and bidding technology with comprehensive strategic and tactical value added services to manage more than $750MM in annual search spend for over 200 leading advertisers in 20 countries. The company has over 200 employees and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA with offices in New York, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Hong Kong, and India, and technology licensing partnerships in Japan and Australia. Efficient Frontier is a privately held company with funding from Redpoint Ventures and Cambrian Ventures. For more information, please visit www.efrontier.com and subscribe to the Efficient Frontier blog at http://blog.efrontier.com/.

NEW YORK – Yahoo! (Nasdaq:YHOO) announced the formation of a Digital Advisory Council that will consist of industry executives from its agency and advertiser partners. The Council will work collaboratively to explore the continued evolution of digital media and online advertising.

Yahoo! has created many partnerships over the past eighteen months that are reflective of the paradigm shift toward openness occurring across the online media landscape. Multi-year partnerships with premium publishers, the Newspaper Consortium, as well as the Yahoo!-Google services agreement all are part of Yahoo!’s more open approach.

“As Yahoo! partners with publishers to extend the reach of our network, we have formed the Digital Advisory Council to identify innovative ways to improve advertiser performance, particularly in anticipation of the rollout of Yahoo’s new advertising management platform in the coming months,” said Hilary Schneider, executive vice president, Yahoo! U.S.

The Council will serve as a vehicle for soliciting feedback and will supplement Yahoo!’s daily conversations with advertisers. Active discussion with key customers is an important pillar in making Yahoo! a partner of choice, particularly during a time when competition for ad dollars is as robust as ever. Yahoo!’s Digital Advisory Council will first meet in the fourth quarter of this year.

“Opening up Yahoo! is a key part of our strategy, and we want to help advertisers understand how they can benefit from this approach,” Schneider added. “At the same time, there has been confusion and misinformation surrounding Yahoo!’s agreement with Google, which represents another key milestone in opening up our network. As questions emerge about how Yahoo! will implement this agreement, the Advisory Council will provide a forum for us to engage in a dialogue with key customers on those issues.”

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com.

NEW YORK – Emmy Award nominee and Golden Globe Award winner Jon Hamm of AMC’s original drama series Mad Men, today joined Yahoo!’s Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang, President Sue Decker and Executive Vice President of Yahoo! U.S. Hilary Schneider for the 5th annual Advertising Week conference in New York to announce the launch of APT from Yahoo!. Formerly known as AMP!, APT from Yahoo! is an intelligent innovation in online media, a digital advertising solution that streamlines the process of planning, buying and optimizing display advertising. APT is designed to simplify the process of buying and selling ads online while connecting all the market players – publishers, advertisers, agencies, networks, partners and developers – from a unified platform to do business more efficiently and effectively. The platform is rolling out as planned in phases beginning with publishers the San Francisco Chronicle of Hearst Newspapers and San Jose Mercury News of MediaNews Group.

“The advertising landscape has changed dramatically since the days when Don Draper was roaming the halls of Sterling Cooper,” said Jerry Yang. “While Mad Men celebrates the Madison Avenue of 40 years ago, APT from Yahoo! clearly represents the future.”

As a Web-based solution with the potential to allow unprecedented ease of cross-selling across the largest open network of publishers, advertisers, ad networks and agencies from a single integrated interface, APT is a single platform for connected digital advertising, including ad serving, ad network and ad exchange. It is designed to streamline advertisers’ ad-buying process for multiple accounts across multiple publishers, and enable creative testing and campaign optimization. It is also intended to help advertisers precisely yet easily identify audiences through geographic, demographic and interest-based targeting while enabling publishers to better monetize their content as well as making better connections across the Web.

“One of the major benefits of APT from Yahoo! is the fact that it’s an open system, designed to enable advertisers to reach their audiences in their favorite places across the Web, and publishers to monetize inventory across the broadest possible demand channels,” said Sue Decker. “As we transform the advertising marketplace, we’re excited to have key members of the Newspaper Consortium, the San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News, lead the way in this historic journey.”

For publishers like the San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News, APT is designed to improve monetization capabilities and increase advertising revenue with solutions targeted at accelerating the ability to take advantage of premium brand and performance-based advertising. Key benefits include:

* Fostering a more transparent marketplace through the ability to connect to new business partners for cross-selling;
* Providing ad selection and inventory management tools to match relevant ads to marketers’ target audience; and
* Allowing publishers to manage their own private networks.

“The Newspaper Consortium’s open, collaborative and exciting partnership with Yahoo! is enabling a crucial transformation in the newspaper industry,” said George Irish, President, Hearst Newspapers. “With this next-generation platform we can realize the powerful combination of Yahoo!’s technology innovations, national reach and partner network with the Consortium’s rich local content, sales forces and local market expertise.”

“When Yahoo! showed us the platform’s potential in February this year, the Newspaper Consortium was impressed by Yahoo!’s commitment and investment in a game-changing technology that would significantly advance our efforts to monetize the Web,” said William Dean Singleton, Vice Chairman and CEO, MediaNews Group. “Seven months later, I am very proud to announce that Yahoo! has executed, and we are jointly accelerating toward fully using the platform to aggregate inventory, target relevant audiences and drive revenue growth.”

Some of the initial capabilities featured in the new platform include:

* Guaranteed cross-selling with pre-defined selling rules
* Ad Exchange for non-guaranteed inventory
* Advanced audience targeting techniques based upon behavior and geography
* Inventory lookup and forecasting across individual and partner sites
* Creative workflow automation and personalization
* Powerful rate card tools for improved yield management
* Filters for better controls around creatives
* Flexible and powerful APIs
* Federated ad call to support multiple ad formats

Yahoo! has developed a systematic integration plan for adding other Newspaper Consortium partners onto APT throughout this year and into next year. APT is a significant component of the unique and deep collaboration between Yahoo! and America’s newspapers. Launched in 2006 with 176 newspapers across the United States, the strategic partnership to create one of the largest and most comprehensive advertising networks in the online industry now comprises 35 media companies spanning 784 newspapers.

Yahoo! will start to make the platform available to other parties including advertisers, publishers, networks and agencies in 2009.

Additional information on APT is available at http://apt.yahoo.com. For press materials including executive bios, APT screen shots and images visit http://apt.yahoo.com/newsworthy.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO) is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com.

The partnership combines Pinch Media’s analytics and advertising technology for iPhone App Store applications with JumpTap’s comprehensive mobile ad network. Developers can easily insert advertisements into their applications to effectively creative revenue to drive their businesses. In turn, advertisers can creatively reach the iPhone’s desirable demographics in the immersive in-application environment.

Pinch Media has already built a trusted network of iPhone application developers. By combining the power of Pinch Analytics into their iPhone apps, developers are free to innovate, develop and monetize their applications. The analytics module provides a comprehensive view into the number of unique users, length of time the application is being used, geographic location and other valuable data. This information provides advertisers the unique opportunity to reach relevant audiences through targeted in-application advertising on the most popular and growing mobile traffic.

“By adding ad-supported iPhone applications to JumpTap’s mobile advertising network, we can immediately provide high-quality brand advertisers to our developers,” said Greg Yardley, Pinch Media’s co-founder and chief executive officer. “Pinch Media’s iPhone-optimized advertising and analytics package provides iPhone developers with a straightforward and simple way to expand their businesses.”

iPhone traffic currently represents over 30 percent of US page views among top mobile sites, presenting an unparalleled opportunity for brands to effectively engage with their users. Since Apple launched its 3G iPhone July 12th, more than 800 applications have become available. Pinch Media’s analytics package, currently deployed in many App Store applications, substantiates that iPhone applications are growing extremely rapidly, with the most popular free applications having over 250,000 unique users in less than two weeks. Individuals are extremely engaged with their applications – on average, spending almost five minutes a session.

“The iPhone’s App Store can already be considered a huge success and we’re just beginning to see signs of its full advertising power,” said Paran Johar, chief marketing officer of JumpTap. “This partnership creates the highest quality iPhone application ad network which will have a significant impact on the marketplace. Leveraging JumpTap’s global experience and sales team, brands will have the ability to deliver relevant and highly targeted ads to the highest quality premium traffic available.”

ABOUT PINCH MEDIA

Pinch Media helps iPhone developers establish and expand their businesses by providing iPhone-optimized analytics and advertising services. Founded in April 2008 by Greg Yardley and Jesse Rohland, Pinch Media was the first company to publicly offer services for iPhone developers, launching its popular Pinch Analytics product in May. Pinch Media’s advertising solutions are designed with the individual user experience in mind, delivering high-quality advertisements in unobtrusive but effective formats. Additional information is available at www.pinchmedia.com or by contacting info@pinchmedia.com.

ABOUT JUMPTAP

Reaching over 150 million mobile subscribers through partnerships with 17 mobile operators and numerous content publishers, JumpTap’s powerful search and advertising solutions benefit the whole mobile Internet ecosystem: JumpTap enables carriers to maintain a strong, sustainable position in the mobile marketing value chain, drives traffic and revenue opportunities to content publishers, and gives advertisers access to targeted customers. Recently awarded the best advertising and marketing search engine award by Visiongain and selected by IDC as one of the 10 emerging mobile players to watch in 2007, JumpTap has developed the most comprehensive search and advertising solutions in the market. For more information, please visit www.jumptap.com.

The Yahoo! sold adverts will be seen by visitors to Planet 3, which reaches a group of customers who have already demonstrated interest in mobile internet services. For example, 3 UK’s ad-funded music video service offers subscribers free music videos in return for watching a short, targeted video ad and already has more than 1.4 million registered users.

3 UK Head of on Portal Advertising, Neil Andrews said, “With the ever-increasing popularity of the mobile Internet, more and more people are coming to the 3 portal. We’re in a great position to help brands reach our subscribers with a targeted and relevant advertising message.”

“We believe Yahoo! has the experience to help us take full advantage of our advanced portal and unique all 3G subscriber-base. By combining Yahoo!’s expertise in mobile advertising with 3′s valuable inventory, we can help big brands target their advertising with maximum success.”

3 UK was one of the first entrants into the mobile advertising space and has the highest percentage of subscribers accessing mobile Internet services of any operator. In a recent survey by M:Metrics, 3 was ranked second only to Facebook for the amount of time users spent browsing. 3 was the only network ranked in the top five. The portal is prime advertising real-estate which has already been successfully used by leading brands to reach key audiences as part of integrated digital advertising campaigns.

Geraldine Wilson, VP of Connected Life, Yahoo! Europe said, “Yahoo! is very focused on building up the reach and quality network that advertisers are looking for on the mobile, along with targeting capabilities and creative formats necessary for mobile advertising to be really successful. 3 UK is a great new addition to our portfolio of mobile advertising partners. Their commitment to bring the best of the mobile Internet to their customers, coupled with the high volume of traffic the portal gets, presents our portfolio of advertisers with a very attractive opportunity.”

As an early leader in mobile advertising, Yahoo! currently offers mobile display advertising in 23 territories across Europe, Asia and the Americas. Yahoo! is focused on creating the monetization engine for the mobile Internet, enabling publishers to monetize their services and advertisers to reach their target audiences at large scale.

About 3 UK
3 is a mobile operator focused on bringing the benefits of the internet to mobile communications. We offer attractive pricing and give our customers the widest choice of ways to stay connected at home or abroad. To do this we’re building the UK’s best high-speed mobile broadband network. 3 UK is a member of the HWL group of 3G companies, which include 3G operations in Australia, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Italy Macau and Sweden.

Three facts about 3:

* 3 launched the UK’s first 3G network offering national coverage for calls and texts, and has over 90% population coverage for 3G services. As we consolidate our radio access network with T-Mobile we expect to reach almost complete UK population coverage for 3G by the end of 2008.
* 3 has over 3 million active customers in the UK and over 16 million worldwide.
* 3 was the first to enable free voice over internet calling with Skype and the first to launch a dedicated Skype mobile phone, the 3 Skypephone.

For more information about 3 UK, please visit www.three.co.uk or call the 3 Media Office on 0845 6038333.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the busiest Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit www.yahoo.co.uk or the Company’s blog, Yodel Anecdotal.

For more information on Yahoo! Mobile please visit http://uk.mobile.yahoo.com/

“More and more, we see the need for agencies and media and technology companies to work together to create a new level of value,” said Mark Read, WPP’s Director of Strategy and CEO of WPP Digital. “We are very pleased to have established this partnership with Yahoo! which, enabled by our earlier acquisition of 24/7 Real Media, will turn this vision into a reality.”

As part of the agreement, WPP agencies, working through 24/7 Real Media, will develop a proprietary media trading platform that connects to Yahoo!’s Right Media Exchange. WPP agencies will work with 24/7 Real Media to integrate their proprietary targeting capabilities into the platform and develop custom trading strategies, which can be seamlessly executed via the Right Media Exchange on a highly targeted and cost-effective basis.

“As marketers take new approaches to understand and engage consumers, we are thrilled to partner with a powerhouse like WPP to evolve and grow their digital practice with our next-generation solutions,” said Hilary Schneider, EVP of Global Partner Solutions for Yahoo!. “We are committed to providing the technology, insights and media expertise required to deliver the most relevant audiences across the web and to power the seamless conversation with consumers that drives greater brand awareness, consideration, intent and most importantly – action.”

WPP will also work with Yahoo! to develop a WPP marketplace, giving WPP’s agencies even greater access to inventory, visibility across the market and insight into value. WPP intends to draw inventory for the WPP marketplace from Yahoo!’s owned- and-affiliated networks and 24/7’s Global Web Alliance. The marketplace would also be open to third-party publishers.

“This partnership with Yahoo! will give our agencies and, in turn, our clients, an advantage in securing more relevant, high-quality digital media inventory. And, it will be aggregated to our bespoke needs, at the best value for our clients,” said Irwin Gotlieb, CEO of GroupM.

About WPP

WPP is a world leader in communications services. Through its operating companies, the Group provides a comprehensive range of advertising and marketing services to national, multinational and global clients. For more information, visit www.wpp.com.

GroupM is WPP’s media investment management arm – comprising leading media agencies MediaCom, Mediaedge:cia, MindShare Worldwide and MAXUS – which focuses on the intelligent application of volume and scale in trading, innovation and quality of services.

24/7 Real Media, a member of WPP, is a leading global digital marketing company which empowers advertisers and publishers to engage their target audiences with greater precision, transparency and ROI. Using its award winning ad serving, targeting, tracking and analytics platform, powerful search marketing technology and global network of specialized web sites, the company has turned the art of reaching audiences across virtually any digital medium into a measurable science.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com.

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties concerning Yahoo!’s strategic partnership with WPP’s GroupM, 24/7 Real Media and WPP Digital (including without limitation the statements contained in the quotations from management in this press release), as well as Yahoo!’s strategic and operational plans. Actual events or results may differ materially from those described in this press release due to a number of risks and uncertainties. The potential risks and uncertainties include, among others, the possibility that the expected or planned implementations of the partnership described may be delayed, may not ultimately be implemented, or if implemented may not be successful; and that the anticipated benefits to Yahoo!, WPP’s GroupM, 24/7 Real Media and WPP Digital, marketers and consumers may not be realized. More information about potential factors that could affect Yahoo!’s business and financial results is included under the captions, “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2007 and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2008, which are on file with the SEC and available at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.