The Lab featuring the shakers, players and the innovators that we cover on Profectio and PR In Canada.  In this episode I caught up with Matt Idema, Vice President, Strategy and Business Management, Yahoo! and Country Manager, Yahoo! Canada.  Matt was in town as part of Advertising Week and I had a chance to catch up with him and discuss Yahoo! Canada and its new direction including the new Yahoo! Canada home page.

Click here for the interview.

[audio:http://www.profectio.com/wp-content/TheLab_MattIdema.mp4]

Here are a few key topics we discussed:

• What Is Yahoo?
• Yahoo & Rogers – The Content Deal
• Yahoo & Microsoft – The Search Deal
• Yahoo and the Quebec Marketplace
• Are You Hiring?
• When Will Carol Bartz Come To Canada?

It was good to chat with Matt and I’m exciting to see what’s next from Yahoo! Canada and their growing team.

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With new leadership in place with Carol Bartz, Yahoo has been moving forward in a new direction.  As part of the new focus Yahoo! Canada has rolled out the first phase of their new home page (see image below).  Canadians can now take advantage of the power of Yahoo’s tools including mail, photo sharing and instant message and combine this with the best the web has to offer through apps which allow content to be added to help make a better experience.

“The Web is an indispensible part of Canadians’ lives, it’s where they socialize, stay in touch with family and friends, buy products and services and share their photos and memories,” says Matt Idema, Yahoo! vice president and country manager, Canada. “Whether for their PC or mobile device, Yahoo! Canada is bringing greater simplicity and relevance to the way Canadians experience the Web. Our new homepage is designed to help Canadians stay on top of what is going on in their world, and around the world no matter where they are.”

Features of the new Yahoo! Canada homepage include:

• My Favourites – Canadians can easily choose from a dashboard of more than 57 apps to add directly to their personalized Yahoo! Canada homepage, including apps for different email providers (Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, best of breed content sites (People.com,  Forbes.com, social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace ), and many others.
• App Maker – Developed by Yahoo!, users can easily create their own apps on the fly by adding virtually any URL of their choice.
• Social Updates – Users can share their current “status” with friends directly from the Yahoo! Canada homepage. They can get visibility into what their friends are doing across the Web, and integrate with leading social networks like Facebook and MySpace.
• News, For You – Hyper-local news and the ability to toggle the news module to the top of the page offer easier ways to access the news that matters most.
• PC to Mobile Sync – Canadians can continue their Yahoo! Canada experience on the go with a more seamless PC to mobile integration. New apps added to the Yahoo! Canada PC homepage can be easily added to the mobile homepage so Canadians’ Yahoo! mobile experience mirrors their PC experience.

I had a chat with Max Tremblay, Director of Marketing for Yahoo! Canada:

DF: How do you refer to Yahoo – portal, website, online destination?
MT: “We want to be the center of people’s lives, it is a one stop shop for users interactions.”

DF: What is the opportunity for brands with Yahoo’s home page?

MT: The site was redesigned with advertisers in mind, we wanted to make advertising opportunities more relevant for them.  We have fewer advertising places available, but have improved on the relevancy.

DF: Where does Yahoo! Canada rank among other Canadian properties?
MT: According to comScore, we are #3 with 16.3 million unique visitors month.

DF: How will the Microsoft/ Yahoo search deal affect Canada?
MT: I don’t see it having a significant impact on our business, it will be business as usual until the deal is finally approved.

DF: Are you looking for content? What is the opportunity for content creators?
MT: We are always looking for Canadian content partners, and our main focus is on sports, news, finance and lifestyle.

DF: Has Y!ou campaign had any penetration in Canada?
DF: We are still evaluation the results and will be looking to do something to support the new home page and the global campaign in Canada.

Yahoo Canada is also going to be heavily involved in the Winter Olypics and will have the third largest media presence.

• Yahoo.ca will feature expert commentary from well-known Canadian athletes including Elvis Stojko (figure skating), Ken Daneyko (hockey), and Jennifer Jones (curling), who will bring a uniquely Canadian perspective to their Olympics coverage.
• Yahoo! Canada has expanded its sports editorial team at home to include former Globe and Mail staff
• Yahoo!’s Olympic mobile site, scheduled to launch on February 9, will enable fans on the go to keep up with the latest happenings, including medal counts, news and expert coverage, live results, athlete profiles and more.

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In a interview Carol Bertz, CEO of Yahoo gave to Bloomberg, she gives herself a B-minus for her past year’s work at Yahoo. She was quoted as saying reporters, “It was a little tougher internally than I think I had anticipated, I did move fast, but this is a big job.”

Personally I’ve always been a fan of Yahoo and just want to see them get back on track.  What do you think, has she earned her “B”?

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Hitwise has released their latest number of the search landscape and once again Google takes the top spot with 71.6% of the search marketing share in the world.

Unfortunately this means that both Yahoo and Microsoft’s Bing have both taken a dip. Yahoo is down 5% to 15.39% and Bing is down 2% to 9.39%.

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Google is bringing consumers across the Unites States an early Christmas gift as they announce the availability of free wifi in 47 airports including Las Vegas, San Jose, Boston, Baltimore, Burbank, Houston, Indianapolis, Seattle, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, St. Louis and Charlotte. Additionally, as a result of this project, Burbank and Seattle airports will begin offering airport-wide free Wi-Fi indefinitely.

Will Canada Have Free Public WiFi?

I asked Google’s public relations person if they’d also be bringing WiFi to Canadian airports this holiday season and was told while they don’t have any specific plans they are not ruling it out in the future.

The recent move by Google did trigger Microsoft and Yahoo to launch similar free public WiFi offerings recently. Microsoft is teaming up with provider JiWire in airports to offer its free WiFi, as long as users use Bing for at least one search. Yahoo is offering free WiFi for an entire year in New York City’s Times Square.

Here in Canada there have been a number of providers including Rogers, Toronto Wireless and most recently Vex Canada entering the market place.   Each having a slightly different business model that will allow consumers to be always connected.

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Not quite a “Happy Friday” as news comes down the pipe from Carol Bartz that Yahoo is making further cuts to their Canadian operations, as we’ve reported before there are not many people left running the show here in Toronto.  Over the last few months they have cut sales, communications, marketing and engineering which  has pretty much turned the office into a ghost town.

The company is planning to manage Canada remotely from their head office in California, a strategy which has never proven to be a successful model for any company that size. There are some good people on the street but they are quickly accepting other employment opportunities.

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The axe continues to drop at Yahoo Canada, so much that it has myself and many others wondering who is left. Yahoo has laid off another 5 – 6 employees from its Canadian division, which is unfortunate as they had a talented team such as Former-GM for Canada Kerry Munro. I guess they had to get the money to pay the advertising bill from somewhere?

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Since her arrival as CEO of Yahoo! Carol Bartz has been made a number of changes, the biggest one to date has been the much anticipated search deal with Microsoft. Other changes have included a few acquisitions and killing off some much products that should have been put in the grave a long time ago.
Yesterday Yahoo announced the launch of a $100 million global brand campaign that launches September 28 in the Unites States and October 5 in the United Kingdom and India. The campaign will launch in other Yahoo markets such as Brazil, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, and Taiwan during 2010.

“Today the Web and your world are inseparable,” said Yahoo! Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz. “Hundreds of millions of people use Yahoo! ® to get the information they need, connect with friends and family, and be entertained. We are about creating online experiences people find meaningful, relevant, and fun.”

Yahoo has been criticized by the media  over the last year by media and analysts for having lost their way but it now looks that Carol Bartz has identified the key strength that Yahoo brings to the table and gives it a unique position within the online marketplace. During the IAB MIXX Conference and Expo in New York City this week Elisa Steele, Yahoo! Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer said “Our vision is to be at the center of people’s online lives—to be at the place where their world meets the larger world, our new branding will focus on people—the power and promise of ‘you.”

How Has Carol Bartz Changed Yahooo

• Revamped Yahoo homepage – giving users faster access to their favourite content and sites from a single screen and location
• Updated Yahoo Mail – now offering advanced photo sharing, editing
• Shut down Bix, a company offering online contest that was acquired by Yahoo
• Yahoo acquires Xoopit (for around $20 million)
• Shut down Geocities, we all shut a tear on this one as we’ve all had a Geocities account at one point (even if we never used it)
• and a few more things along the way, and its only September!

During the press conference Carol did mention Yahoo is still on the hunt for other acquisitions that will help them pull in more users to the online portal.

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