Two strikes against Yahoo chief Jerry Yang: there appears to be a growing movement to take him out of the top position at Yahoo. Carl Icahn, who received approval to purchase more Yahoo shares last week, already attempted to file a proxy slate to replace the whole board, which would have included ousting Yang. Although his efforts have been rebuffed thus far , Icahn continues to fight the good fight, according to the Wall Street Journal today. Mr. Icahn . . .

A post at TechCrunch today boasts that Wikia is "beginning to suck a lot less." The wiki based search product is supposedly stepping up its game through the implementation of editing features that lets searchers reorder, add, remove, rate, annotate, and comment on results. These new features make the system harder to gain, and spammers easier to oust. Jimmy Wales admitted to the lack of quality his site has shown and stated that it: Pretty much sucked.

In a global world we have easy access to news that happens anywhere in the world within minutes or hours. I've noticed more people my age )in their 30s( say they simply don't watch the news. Rather than a constant reminder of problems that are so large and remote that it overwhelms them, they tune it out. Or, like me, I get most of it from Yahoo news or from blogs. What about the younger crowd, how do they view the news?

Do desperate times really call for desperate measures? It does, if you're a company facing a hostile acquisition by Microsoft! Just one day before Microsoft made its bid for Yahoo, executives dismissed any notion of partnering with Google on search ads. According to Reuters : Bracing for employee questions over whether Yahoo should outsource its search-ad sales to Google,

It appears Google's Custom Search Business Edition is undergoing a metamorphosis. Just announced, the hosted site search solution will be renamed Google Site Search . In addition to the easier to remember name, Google's also adding a bunch of new features and upgrades, including: Enhanced index coverage: comprehensive search results on any website by crawling and indexing more content ,

Data center and hosting provider The Planet is in the process of trying to recover from a fire which has crippled their H1 data center in Houston, TX. According to an Intology article , nearly 9,000 servers at the facility are currently off line. The Planet engineers are working with the Houston fire department to get clearance to restore emergency backup power and get servers back online.

The first linky goodness of a new month. If that's not enough to A great account of why Jenn Laycock is a great person we need to be careful what we blogand how we respond to criticism in the blogosphere . Warning: hug factor = high. Looks like Wal-mart is testing free online classifieds with Oodle. Who will be hurt worse: newspapers or craigslist? A Canadian privacy watchdog has filed a complaint against Facebook for violating privacy laws ,

Facebook is going to be offering numerous additions to its developer platform in the coming weeks. First there were the rumors, then the generic confirmation : Facebook's developer platform will go )mostly( open source. CNET reports today on Facebook's reasoning behind this decision : The reason for going open-source, Facebook said, is that developers requested it. And it's to Facebook's advantage to listen,

ReadWriteWeb was the first to blog our big Trackur announcement, but I'm excited to bring you news of Trackur Trends-a new way to measure social media conversation trends. What is Trackur? )I'll assume there are few readers who've not yet seen me mention my new service, so here's the 411( Launched in February 2008, Trackur is a self-service online reputation monitoring tool.

There's a good reason why you're getting Pilgrim's Picks early today. I have big Trackur news to announce later today, and I need to get cracking. Duncan Riley had be excited about the launch of Twitter rival Plurk . The same micromedia format, but with a visual twist. Then I read the service is already having stability issues. Hmm, if I'm going to jump from the frying pan Twitter, I'd want to land in a cool refreshing pool, not a fire.

Less than two years ago, Yahoo was on a roll and had just signed a deal with computer manufacturer HP that would see its search engine as the default on all new HP computers. Fast forward to 2008, and Yahoo's on the ropes, with Microsoft providing the body blows. In particular, the news that Microsoft's Live Search will now become the default search engine for HP computers and a Live Search enabled toolbar will come installed too. Poor Yahoo.

I'd like to think that I live my life by a mantra similar to Google's "don't be evil." Mine is the Golden Rule; "Treat others the way you'd wish to be treated." Still, being nice doesn't mean being naive. I know most of the black-hat techniques, sneaky manipulation tactics, and, if I ever stooped that low, I would know that when you tell tales on one of your competitors, you must remove your fingerprints. Unfortunately,

Since we placed all of Marketing Pilgrim's ad slots on sale , we've had an influx of interest. There's a good chance that we'll sell out our inventory very soon, so drop me an email if you're interested. One last thing, we've now added new RSS only ads . There are just ten RSS ad slots, so if you want to see your ad in rotation at the bottom of our RSS feed, get in quick; they're just $150 per month.

You heard the man ! We have a limited capacity for postsand I'm sure you're all busy reading the fabulous entries in this year's SEM Scholarship contest , so I'll follow Andy's suit and summarize the good stuff: It's been exactly one month since they promised it , and here it )almost( is: FeedBurner/Google's AdSense for feeds , due Monday. We all get to hear a lot of whining and complaining about advertising on social networking sites.

A study by Borrell Associates found that almost all newspaper web sites are profitable - thanks to online advertising . Advertising revenue accounts for over half of revenues locally, and 57.3 percent, goes to online advertising like Google. They studied 3,100 sites owned by newspapers, radio stations, TV stations and independents to find out where they are making the most ad revenues. According to Borrell, there are some important "firsts" in the newspaper industry.

Thanks to everyone that entered the 3rd Annual SEM Scholarship Contest . We had an amazing 31 qualifying entries and the quality of advice was exceptionally high! I know it can be hard to keep track of all the entries, so here's the full list: The State of the SEO Industry Address From Geek to Chic - The Soap Opera of the Internet Link Juice: How to make people link to your website Excuse me, may I have my cheap clicks back?

By Ben Fremer This is my third marketing pilgrim search marketing scholarship entry. Previous small-business related Marketing Pilgrim Search Marketing Scholarship articles we have submitted in the prior two competitions include Dominating the long tail of local search with databases & The Ultimate Internet Marketing Article )overview of search marketing for small businesses . We have done dozens of SEO and link building campaigns for small businesses ,

By Mike Morabito Did you see it? I feel like I was there when it happened. As we begin watching the YouTube video Kobe Bryant )the best basketball player in the game( puts on his shoes and against advice of his friend standing near by he gets into position to jump over a moving Aston Martin car that is speeding in his direction. As you hear the car's engine off screen begin to roar your heart starts to beat as you get pulled into the action.

By Mark R. Hinkle The reason people publish content on the web varies: to promote a product, their company, or themselves as an expert. If you are looking for a shortcut to fame and fortune stop reading. Publishing and promoting your content should be looked at as a process with a distinct goal in mind. Gimmicks and other tricks are short-sighted unless you want to be the next Tommy Tutone or Devo it's worth your time to come up for a complete content and promotion strategy.

By Lamees Abourahma Web content has evolved from plain old text to more sassy content including video, sound and Flash. This new engaging content is more likely to attract visitors and capture their attention for a longer time )thus increasing Site Traffic and lowering Bounce Rate(. Bruce Clay , in a recent episode of SEM Synergy on Webmasterradio.fm titled "Changing definition of content" said: "' the definition )of Web content( has expanded. Content can be video,