Yahoo on deck: Q2 earnings due today
Yahoo Inc. reports earnings today for the fiscal second quarter. Associated Press reports are previewing expected Yahoo discussion with an overview of recent Yahoo develoments:
The scuffle for search-advertising dollars continues. Google Inc. remains the leading search engine in the U.S. in terms of number of overall searches, but Yahoo's sites are still the most-visited.
This quarter, Yahoo kept working on what is referred to as "Project Panama," an overhaul of its online advertising platform that could help the company better compete with Google. In the meantime, Microsoft Corp.'s MSN sites stopped using Yahoo's existing ad platform in May, switching instead to a new proprietary system.
But the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company expanded its advertising clout that month in a deal making it the exclusive provider of display advertising on eBay Inc. The transaction also puts Yahoo's search engine into eBay's popular browser toolbar.
In the international arena, June soccer madness helped boost Yahoo page views during a traditionally slow period for the Web _ the companys' official FIFA World Cup Web site racked up 4.2 billion page views. In Asia, Yahoo initiated a $60 million investment in Korean e-commerce enterprise Gmarket Inc., in exchange for a 10 percent stake in the company.
This quarter, Yahoo also rolled out the first phase of a partnership with Microsoft that makes it easier for users of the companies' instant messaging programs to chat online with each other, strengthening both against competing programs from Time Warner Inc.'s AOL and Google.
