Yahoo!’s free online email service is to grow new tentacles with the company planning to add two domains alongside its existing “@yahoo.com” addresses. The struggling internet firm said it is to introduce “@ymail.com” and “@rocketmail.com” to give people who use its service a better choice of Yahoo! email address options.

According to industry stats, the company has about 266 million peeps across the globe with a Yahoo! email address, making it the most popular web-based email in the world, ahead of Microsoft’s Hotmail and Google’s Gmail.”We recognise that people want an email address that reflects who they are,” Yahoo! Mail vice president John Kremer told Agence France-Presse.

The embarrassing shareholder class action lawsuit filed by the pensions funds for Detroit policemen and firemen as well as its city workers against Yahoo! spells out not just what it calls a web of cushy interlocking relationships and rich pay for the board members, but what it says is the real reason why Yahoo!’s board rejected Microsoft’s $33 a share offer to buy the Internet giant.

The lawsuit created headlines this week as it contained allegations that the board and Yahoo! chief executive Jerry Yang had enacted a brand new employee compensation plan that acted as a deal spoiler, as it could have encouraged employees to walk out en masse for “any good reason,” including changes in job titles, with total payouts reaching as much as $2.4bn, including accelerated stock and stock option vesting for all employees, all sums an acquirer such as Microsoft would have to pay (the reason why Microsoft said it set aside an extra $1.5bn to do the deal).

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NEW YORK (AFP) - Microsoft’s failed attempt to buy Yahoo will send it searching for new allies and likely see Yahoo’s share price plummet, leaving Internet giant Google the big winner, analysts said.

Microsoft announced Saturday that it had given up its quest for the struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo, which rejected Microsoft’s offer even after it raised the original bid by five billion to more than 46 billion dollars.

The announcement ended three months of overtures by the software giant, which wanted to merge its Internet resources with Yahoo’s worldwide offerings to gain ground on undisputed online advertising juggernaut Google.

Google meanwhile has increased its share of the Internet search engine market and multiplied its innovations. The firm recently also announced a way to refine its image searches, based on technology that recognizes images, not text.

Analysts believe moreover that the Microsoft-Yahoo talks have benefited Google, and suggest Microsoft did well to cut them short.

“Microsoft did the smart thing — they walked,” said Silicon Valley analyst Rob Enderle. “Yahoo’s stock price is going to come down like a rock on Monday.”

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Saturday May 3, 9:33 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (NasdaqGS:MSFT - News) withdrew its offer for Yahoo Inc (NasdaqGS:YHOO - News) on Saturday as negotiations fell through on price, even after the software giant raised its bid by about $5 billion to $47.5 billion.

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said his company increased its offer to $33 per share, from the $31 per share cash-and-stock bid that it initially made on January 31. But Yahoo was looking for $37 a share, Ballmer said.

“Despite our best efforts, including raising our bid by roughly $5 billion, Yahoo has not moved toward accepting our offer,” Ballmer said in a statement.

“After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal,” said Ballmer.

Yahoo was not immediately available for comment.

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SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. may go hostile in its bid for Yahoo Inc. as soon as Friday, according to a published report.

Citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal reported early Friday that the world’s largest software maker may be preparing to go straight to Internet pioneer Yahoo’s shareholders.

An announcement was “likely” to come Friday, according to the report, though the newspaper said its sources cautioned that Microsoft may delay.

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Yahoo, after years of battling Internet rival Google for online advertising, said Wednesday it would launch a limited test of Google’s AdSense for Search service.

The announcement drew a sharp response from Microsoft, which warned that a Yahoo-Google partnership would cover some 90 percent of online advertising.

The test is expected to last up to two weeks and will be limited to no more than three percent of Yahoo search queries, Yahoo said in a statement. The program will deliver Google ads alongside Yahoo’s own search results.

The Sunnyvale, California-based company said the test will apply only to traffic from yahoo.com in the US and will not include Yahoo’s network of affiliate or premium publisher partners.

Yahoo said the testing does not necessarily mean it will “join the AdSense for Search program or that any further commercial relationship with Google will result.”

Yahoo is also fighting off a takeover bid from software giant Microsoft, arguing the offer undervalues the Internet firm.

Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, said in a statement: “Any definitive agreement between Yahoo and Google would consolidate over 90 percent of the search advertising market in Google’s hands.”

He added: “This would make the market far less competitive, in sharp contrast to our own proposal to acquire Yahoo. We will assess closely all of our options.”

Smith said Microsoft remains committed to a 44.6 billion dollar takeover offer for Yahoo.

“Our proposal remains the only alternative put forward that offers Yahoo shareholders full and fair value for their shares, gives every shareholder a vote on the future of the company, and enhances choice for content creators, advertisers, and consumers,” he said.
News: AFP

eSnips made the worst move this week. Now the users who upload the music have to approve each and every file that whether they want to share it with public for downloading or not.

The uploaders are really pisst off now. They have to go through pages and approve each and every file individually.

After this change, eSnip will lose alot of users. Due to the change in their policy many websites which were linked with eSnip will fall and will get a great lose. Just like www.walkblue.com which was searching through the hosted music. I guess its time to say bye bye to esnip now.

Here is what eSnips blog has to say :

Musicians and singers – listen up!

Partly as a response to your requests, and partly because some signed artists have opened eSnips profiles and asked to prevent downloads of their work, we’ve decided to give you more control as to who gets to download your audio files.  Our new audio-only tool allows you to determine, for each file, if it can be downloaded or only listened to from the site.

Up to now, audio files could be downloaded only when you were signed in.  As of today, users who upload or already have a MP3 or WMA audio file in their folders can decide if it can be downloaded or not. 

To allow visitors to download your files in public or group folders click “edit details” next to the file.  The “edit details” link is available only in the “List” “Details” or “One by One” folder views.  On the bottom of the file edit page, you will see the text below.  By checking this box your file will be available for download.  If you don’t check it, the file will only be available for listening only.  By default, files are not available for download.  You’ll need to do this for every audio file you want to enable for download, and for every new audio file you upload.  

When you change a folder from private to either group or public, files will not be available for download unless you purposely enable it.

WalkBlue.com

Yesterday I came across a very new unique type of website. They call itself A MUSIC SEARCH ENGINE. WalkBlue.com is a little different from all the other music websites. They are providing music in wma and mp3 format. You can simply search any kind of song in any language. Music from all around the world is available and is freely available to download. You can either listen to the tracks online or you can even download them.

Site: www.WalkBlue.com

Bill Gates believes Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo is “very fair” and has urged the company to re-think its rejection of the $44 billion deal.

Microsoft’s offer for Yahoo represented a 62% premium on the company’s value at the time of the bid, but Yahoo rejected the offer claiming it undervalued the company.

Gates says that Microsoft is not currently negotiating a further offer with Yahoo, although many analysts believe that the company would agree to a

slightly higher bid. However, Gates suggests that Microsoft was ready to invest heavily in web search, even if it failed to complete the takeover.

“We can afford to make big investments in the engineering and marketing that needs to get done. We will do that with or without Yahoo,” says Gates, who still remains the largest shareholder in Microsoft.

“But we also see that we’d get there faster if the great engineering work that Yahoo has done and the great engineers there were part of the common effort.”

Some analysts have suggested that Yahoo could face legal action from its shareholders for delaying a deal, or accepting a less competitive offer from another company.

“Doing some alternative deal is almost sure to be of less value to shareholders,” says Clayton Moran, an analyst with the Stanford Group in Houston. “You would see all sorts of lawsuits - and they would be lawsuits with merit.”

Yahoo rebuff sets up tense battle with Microsoft
Next move unclear; some analysts expect higher offer from software giant

SAN FRANCISCO - Yahoo Inc.’s rejection of Microsoft Corp.’s unsolicited takeover bid left investors guessing the next move in a tense mating dance that may hatch a more imposing challenger to Google Inc. or disintegrate into a bruising brawl.

The rebuff, formally announced early Monday, wasn’t a surprise because Yahoo had leaked its intention over the weekend.

As expected, Yahoo’s board unanimously decided to spurn Microsoft after concluding the offer — originally worth $44.6 billion or $31 per share — “substantially undervalues� one of the Internet’s prized franchises. The cash-and stock deal is now valued at about $40 billion, or $28.91 per share, because of a drop in Microsoft’s market value.

But Yahoo didn’t raise antitrust concerns about the proposed deal and included language that seemed to invite a higher offer from Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker.

“The board of directors is continually evaluating all of its strategic options in the context of the rapidly evolving industry environment and we remain committed to pursuing initiatives that maximize value for all stockholders,� Yahoo said in a statement.

Microsoft, though, didn’t seem inclined to raise the bid Monday, releasing a statement describing its current bid as “full and fair.�

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