Lay! off! the! fucking! exclamation! marks!

seriously!

I! laugh! each! time! I! see! them!!! please! keep! them!

Seriously!

He can't it's the rules and thats the way it stays. I wonder how much of that has to do with the entire equities market taking a dive. I suppose now would be a good time to buy the company:}}

If® We® Had® Microhoo™ They® Would® Do® This® Instead®

You'd think that Yang would have learned that buzzwords and smack aren't enough to make a company successful - but then, he'd have to make peace with the fact that he lost billions for shareholders simply for hubris.

Yang might be smart, but he needs to meet the future; the future that insists that he grow up and recognize that he's been out classed and doesn't have the balls to play in the big leagues.

Take your winnings and go home to your family. How much do these people want???

The guy subtracts value, he's just looks to feather his own nest, get his god damn parasites off the Yahoo board.

I repeat what I said a month ago in the comments. This is as predicatble and the sunrise:

@yeah, right

By Anonymous Coward

Posted Sunday 3rd August 2008 02:11 GMT

He just did make money at the expense of the other shareholders. Yang should have been kicked to the curb for mismanagement. Yahoo is now a great stock to short. It will be closer to $10 than to $20 by the end of the year, mark my words.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/01/yahoo_shareholders_back_yang/comments/

An exclamation mark devalues in ascii art.

For those existing customers who have bought a domain name through Yahoo there might be a nasty little surprise waiting next time their credit card is debited. Annual fees for some dot com customers have leapt a whopping 200% - and Yahoo is making no great effort to forewarn them of this fact.

Having accidentally discovered this increase hidden in a shady corner of my little-used Yahoo account I contacted the search-meisters and asked them for further information. Specifically, I wanted to know: 1) why the domain renewal price-rise is so substantial and, more importantly, 2) why it isn't being clearly flagged to customers. Responses were not forthcoming for my first few queries.

Several mails later, when I threatened to move to another domain reseller unless I was offered a more realistic domain price, I received the following:

<quote>

Thank you for contacting Yahoo! Billing.

We do understand that you are not happy about the domain renewal rate increase. You are right, there are companies out there that will offer you similar service at a price other than what we are charging.

We have raised the rates for our domain registration renewals based on business reasons. We understand that this may present you with a decision to make regarding your service with Yahoo!

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Billing. If we can provide you with any further information, please reply to this email.

Regards,

Susan

Yahoo! Billing

</quote>

Note that yet again they have failed to address the key question - why are they failing to clearly inform their customers in advance that they are jacking up the price so substantially?

As it stands, unless a customer specifically logs in to their customer account and then looks at their billing information page for the 2009 figures they will be none the wiser until debit time.

To illustrate the point, here's some figures for my dot com renewal fee through Yahoo since 05. Each transaction was for a 12-month renewal of the same .com address:

2005 - $9.95

2006 - $9.95

2007 - $9.95

2008 - $12.95

2009 - $34.95 - noted only on the billing page and nowhere else.

Now, I don't know about you but when I buy anything many times at a certain price I tend to assume that next time the price is going to be round about the same unless I'm told otherwise. I think most other people will think this way too. Certainly, I wonder how many of Yahoos long-term customers are going to be consistently checking their annual billing after say half a decade? I only came across it by accident when I was in the account checking some DNS data.

By not clearly disclosing this increase in advance Yahoo will effectively "catch out" thousands of long-term customers; and substantially increase that revenue as if by accident.

"Yang has said - over and over again - that his primary goal is "maximizing value for our shareholders.""

Yeah? Well, this customer is fucking off, mate. Go sell that to your shareholders.

While the stocks are low, invest a little "spare" money buying stock in yahoo.

If it tanks, oh well, since the money is money you can afford to lose. If however they get bought up, stock goes back up to previous highs, sell and retire to hawaii.

Oh! My! Goodness!

Thanks for the tip, PH. You just saved me a ton of money. I've got a bunch of domain names through Yahoo and hadn't noticed their rate has nearly quadrupled. I am transferring the domains in another browser tab as I post this.

I'm really glad I didn't take the bait on their hosting services as well. That would have been a nuisance.

Perhaps Yahoo! should focus less on shareholder profits and more customer satisfaction.

Two Questions:

1. Why renew annually when you could get a deep discount by renewing for multiple years? You can renew for a full decade if you want, at quite a discount.

2. Why not transfer your registration to someone else? godaddy.com for example, which is one of the largest US registrars & web hosters, is still $9.99 per year for 3 years or less, $9.79 per year for 5 years, or $9.49 per year for 10 year renewals. Web.com's pricing goes as low as $8.95 per year. I am sure there are other registrars.

Re: ...somehow increase Yahoo!'s revenues 25 per cent

By PH

Posted Sunday 7th September 2008 03:17 GMT

PH et al, I very fortunately noticed this in the small print of an email i was sent notifying of renewal of the first domain i registered with them.

I say very fortunately because I have 18 domains registered with !!!!!!!!!!!!!

That would have cost me a massive $630 instead of $180 !

I liked Yahoo and Yang, but now i see them like the rest, big thieving corporate b@st@rds like the rest. Out to screw you.

That's why i transferred those 18 domains to join some other domains i have at Dreamhost, who are a cooperative. Good service, very low prices because they don't have the big greedy overheads if corps, and they have been around for 10 years now - ages in hosting terms.

Yahoo! B@st@rds!

Microwho?

It sure is a lot easier to increase shareholder value by 25% when you've already knocked it down 50%.

It's morons like that that make me think I could screw up the job just as good as he does - for half the price !

And thank goodness all the whiners that complain about all! those! exclamation! points! don't have a chance in hell of seeing any change. Keep it up, guys !

Seriously.

Delicious & Flickr.

The former, in particular. I dread to think what would happed to Delicious if MS took over.

I just tried using Y! as my main search. It's still gash. It only lasted three attempts.

Did a test for 'Office Alternative'.

-Google = OpenOffice.org home page at the top.

-Y! = ranks a page for a 4-Battery Solar Charger on Maplin just below a review for OO.o on the bottom of the first page. OO.o home page not on page 1.

-Ask = OO.o comes second. A few other mentions returned plus a nice attempt at contextual options for narrowing the search.

-MS Live = Unsurprisingly, no mention of OO.o on the first page of results either.

-Alta Vista = "E-38 Inkjet Cartridge, alternative for Epson T048140, black" ranks second FFS!!! Again, no mention of OO.o on page one, and the usual raft of comparison sites are in full effect.

-Clusty = Same old story.

-Cuil = Fair play - it actually returns a couple of sites that mention OO.o

Let's try another search. What about 'make pdfs'?

Google gives three or four links to free pdf creation apps. Cuil manages a couple. Y! is hopeless. Clusty does well and gives a few decent HowTo's - and if you delve into it's clustering you're away. Ask gives good reults with a hover preview and offers context. Alta Vista = somewhere between Y! and Clusty but without the clustering. MS Live returns little of real use but bizzarely puts a Liberal Democrat PDF brochure at the top of the pile on the basis of including the word 'make' in the URL!

But what of the real 'acid test'? - a simple three letter search for 'Reg'.

It's top dog in all of them except Ask and Clusty.

But in all seriousness, Google is top dog because it helps you to find what you want. Simple as that. Ask and Clusty are usefull when a little context/clustering is required. MS Live is hopeless. Y! is little better. Alta Vista is just a re-jigged Y!. Cuil is surprisingly useful.

Final ranking, based on my exceptionally limited test:

1. Google

2. Ask or Clusty, depending on what you're after

3. Cuil

4. Yahoo or Alta Vista (they're essentially the same thing anyway)

5. MS Live

What this has to do with the share price, I don't know. But it sure explains why the big G has taken the market share it currently enjoys.