When is Good

Just came across When is Good. Very handy if you have ever had to find a time to meet with a someone or a group of people.

Sign of Peace

Photo of the allegorical figure of peace leading General Sherman as depicted in Saint-Gaudens’s monument in Grand Army Plaza, New York City.

Empire State City

Empire State Building. View from midtown Manhattan.

Just returned from a trip to New York City. Visiting a city that I spent almost 30 years living in you would think that the inspiration to shoot photos would be gone. I can happily report that this is not the case. in fact I’m finding some fresh perspectives on things that i took for granted while living there. Take this icon for example. I never motivated to get to the top of a tall building in the rain like i did for this shot when i was living 30 blocks away.

It took some distance for me to see a few things that were right in front of my face.

More on Yahoo

I guess I’m not alone in thinking that Yahoo is making the right moves. Fred agrees.

Yahoo’s Google Paid Search Deal

This is a smart deal for Yahoo (see: Jerry’s Blog Post, Search Engine Land Coverage). The non-exclusive nature of it means that they can favor showing their ads over google for any search query. Sounds like smart back-fill to me.

I have to say, I’m impressed with what’s going on at Yahoo despite execs leaving and the Microsoft deal falling through. Jerry is getting Yahoo back to its roots and unwinding the “Yahoo as Hollywood studio” delusion of the last several years. Most of the execs that have left were responsible for Yahoo’s decline or, according to Yahoos I know, not strong leaders to begin with.

Take a look at this list of Yahoo assets:

1. 200M+ users
2. The #2 SEM marketplace
3. RightMedia Display Ad Exchange
4. Flickr - by far the best photo sharing community
5. Yahoo Mail - everyone’s second email account.
6. Yahoo Search - Don’t laugh, you have no idea how hard it is to build real web search capabilities…
7. Yahoo Finance - needs some work but one of the top portals for finance info
8. HotJobs - one of the top job search sites
9. Yahoo Answers - user generated content galore….
10. Maps/Local - needs work but maps is pretty competitive

Any online media or advertising co. would kill for these assets.

If Yahoo can restore some entrepreneurial spirit and organizational “nimbleness” to some of these businesses (namely search and marketplace) and shore up some product fronts (social networking, blogs, autos, etc.) good things will undoubtedly follow as the online ad industry continues to grow rapidly.

It will take time, but with the right leadership, I think Yahoo will sort it out.